The Origin of Pagan Idolatry

This is a reproduction of a library book that was digitized
by Google as part of an ongoing effort to preserve the

information in books and make it universally accessible.
http://books.google.com
U4f\.
0
1
It.
\
Jul
iiili
AUS FEUER und WASSER GEtiCTTET
BEIMGROSSEN BRANDE DER
BAYERiSCHEN 5TMTSBIBU0TMEK
.ittMARZDESKRiEGSJAHRES 1943
THE
ORIGIN
OF
PAGAN
Pag. Idol.
IDOLATRY.
vOL. II.
IPJLATIE M.
5C
To tht.Mght Jfev? THOMAS BURGESS D.D. LORD BISHOP of STDAVIDS,

this Flute, is ?espeetfully insm'bed by his obliged humble Servant
THEAUTHOB.
HdttitHed Feb?f MM, ./. Uf Act dira** by Ft.uJuiJh'huiutnn.S' Ku/t Omrdi tard.London.
ORIGIN
OF
THE
PAGAN
IDOLATRY
ASCERTAINED FROM
HISTORICAL
TESTIMONY
AND
CIRCUMSTANTIAL EVIDENCE.
BY
GEORGE
STANLEY
FABER,
B. D.
RECTOR OF tONG-KEWTON.
Every reasonable Hypothesis should be supported on a fact.

WArblHion's Div. Leg. vol. v. p. 458.
THREE VOLUMES.
VOL. II.
lotuxm;
Printed by A. J. Valpy, Tooke's Court, Chancery Lane,
FOR F. AND C. RIVINGTONS ;
ST- PAULs CHURCH YARD.
1816.
BIBLIOTHECA
KE'GlA
MDXACEtfSIS.
CONTENTS.
book
nr.
CHAPTER
I.
PAGE
Respecting the fable of the four ages
---
THe four ages are indifferently reckoned from the creation and the deluge ;
the golden age being that of the great father
r
.ib.
I. The fable itself properly relates to the period between the creation and the
deluge : but, from certain points of resemblance between the ages of
Adam and of Noah, it was also made to relate to the period between the
deluge and another yet future dissolution of the world
4 .
II. Arrangement of the ten postdiluvian generations, and extension of the iron
age, when it was found that no fresh deluge took place in the tenth
generation
5
III. The descriptions of the golden age prove it to have been really the age of
Paradisiacal innocence
-11
1 . Traditions of Plato
ib.
2. Traditions of Dicearchus 13
3. Traditions of Hesiod and Oyid
14
4. Traditions of the Goths
"ib.
5. Traditions of the Hindoos
15
6. Traditions of the Jains
16
IV. Saturn, who flourished in the golden age, must have been Adam. Yet he
vi
CONTENTS.
PAGE
was also Noah. Hence, when he was viewed as the latter, the golden
age was placed after the flood
ib.
1. Exemplification of this arrangement in the Hindoo fable
-17
2. The same mode of interpretation must be adopted in the fable of the
Jains
18
3. The same also in that of Hesiod
19
(1.) Discussion of the Argonautic, Trojan, and Theban, epochs
23
(2.) Summary of Hesiod's arrangement
31
V. The high antiquity of the fable of the four ages may be gathered from
Scripture
32
CHAFrER II.
Miscellaneous traditions relative to the period between the creation
and the deluge
-
34
I. Hindoo traditions relative to Menu and his three sons and to the murder of
Abel
ib.
IE Parallel traditions relative to the three Cabin and to the murder of Abel
36'
HI. Parallel traditions of the Atlantians
37
IV. Parallel traditions of the Iroquois
j
39
V. Atlantian legend respecting the translation of Enoch
ib.
VI. Indian legend respecting the translation of Enoch
3!)
VII. Atlas, Edris, Idris, Enoch
-40
1. The character of Enoch melts into that of Noah
ib.
2. Mount Atlas and Cader-ldris were each a transcript of the Paradisiacal
Ararat
*
41
3. Thoth and Buddha were the same person as Idris
.
42
4. The character of Enoch melts also into that of Adam
44
5. The translation of Buddha-Sacya
45
6. The translation of Xisuthrus
ib.
CONTENTS.
7. The legend of Annacus or Nannacua

VIII. The longevity of the antediluvian patriarchs
IX. The number of antediluvian generations
vii
PAGE
46
49
52
CHAPTER III.
On (he antediluvian and diluvian history, as exhibited in the ZendAvesta
58
I. Sketch of the antediluvian and diluvian history contained in the Zend-Avesta

ib.
II. On the authenticity of the Zend-Avesta and the character of Zeradusht
6l
1. The hypothesis of Dr. Prideaux respecting the Zend-Avesta
63
2. His hypothesis respecting Zeradusht
70
III. Remarks on the early history contained in the Zend-Avesta
79
1 . Ahriman with his rebel angels
80
2. The first man-bull is viewed as reappearing in the person of the second
ib.
3. Arg-Roud
-81
4. Mount Albordi
82
5. The first man-bull Aboudad is Adam
ib.
6. The second man-bull Taschter with his three companions is Noah with
his three sons
83
7. Respecting the astronomical character of Taschter
-84
(1.) He is declared to be the Sun
ib.
(2.) But he is also declared to be a remarkable Star
ib.
8. Sum of the argument
87
IV. Mythological prayers of the Parsees
ib.
1. Prayer to the Moon
ib.
2. Prayer to the sacred Bull
88
V. Remarks on the prayers
90
VU1
CONTENTS.
1 . On that to the Moon

2. On that to the Bull
(1.) The regenerating rain
.- (2.) The diluvian serpent Ahriman
(3.) M ixed character of Oschen
(4.) Characters of Osbander-Begha and Osider-Begha mingled with that
of the Messiah
(5.) Reasons for believing this commixture to have arisen from a know
ledge of the ancient Hebrew prophecies before the manifestation
of Christ
(6.) Sentiments of the later Zeradusht respecting the promised future
deliverer
(7.) The river Voorokesche
VI. The materials of the Zend-Avestaic history seem to be genuine, though the
work itself may be a comparatively modern compilation
-
CHAPTER
Pagan accounts of an universal deluge
PAGE
90
93
ib.
94
ib.
96
98
102
103
104
IV.
-
Pagan accounts of the deluge have generally some reference to the creation :
a circumstance, which originated from the doctrine of an endless succes
sion of similar worlds
I. Babylonian account of the deluge from Berosus
II. Syro-Grecian account of the deluge from Lucian
1. Dove and Ark
2. Different places, where Deucalion is said to have landed
3. The name of Deucalion known to the Hindoos
III. Hindoo accounts of the deluge, more or less literal
-
1 07
ib.
108
1 10
111
ib.
1 12
113
CONTENTS.
jx
PAGE
1. Legend of the first Avatar
113
(1.) Form of the fish-god
116
(2.) Intercommunion of character between Menu and Vishnou
117
(3.) Sleep and night of Brahma 1 19
(4.) Menu constituted the god of obsequies ib.
(5.) Character of the demon Hayagriva
120
2. Legend of the second Avatar
ib.
(1.) It relates jointly to the creation and to the flood
]22
(2.) Remarks on the legend
123
3. Legend of the third Avatar
124
(1.) Paradisiacal water of immortality
127
(2). Mount Mandar surmounted by the lotos ib.
(S.) Productions from the churned ocean
128
(4.) Fire mingled with water in the destruction of the earth
.
129
IV. Druidical account of the deluge
.ib.
1. Specimens of bardic fragments relative to the deluge 130
2. Respecting the gennineness of those fragments
134
V. Persian account of the deluge
..
136
VI. Egyptian account of the deluge
137
VII. Chinese account of the deluge
139
VIII. American accounts of the deluge 141
1. Mechoacan -----ib.
2. Peruvian
142
3. Brazilian
ib.
4. Nicaraguan -144
5. Terra-Firma
ib.
6. Cuban
145
7. Otaheitean ib.
CHAPTER V.
Respecting tfie sacred books
^147
I. There was a general notion, that certain sacred books were either composed
or preserved or recovered (rom the deluge by the great father
Pag. Idol.
vol. 11.
b
ib.
GONTENTi.
PAG E
Books of Xisuthrus
r
, 147
Pillars of Seth
148
Pillars or books of Thoth
ib
Books of Taut
ib.
Books of the Buddhic great father
149
(1.) Of Mahabad
ib.
(2.) Of Buddha
ib.
(3.) Of Menu
- 1
ib.
6. Books of Minos
150
7. Books of Hu
m
ib.
8. Books of Seth and Enoch
-151
If. Remarks on the sacred books
ib.
1. Cities and mountains of the book 152
& The fable of the sacred books is older than the invasion of Palestine
by the Israelites
154
S. Respecting the character of Seth, to whom the books are ascribed
155
L
2.
3.
4.
5.
CHAPTER VI.
Pagan accounts of the deluge, as erroneously confined by local
appropriation to particular regions
THe pagan accounts of partial deluges have in a great measure originated

from the phraseology of the commemorative Mysteries
I. Local floods produced by the alleged submersion of a city or an island 1. Fables respecting the island Atlantis
2. Fables respecting Samothrace
3. Fables respecting Orchomenus
4. Celtic fable of the submersion of a city beneath a lake -
157
ib.
1.59
160
163
167
170
CONTENTS.
xi
PAGE
5. Remarks on the submersion of Sodom beneath the Dead sea
172
II. Local floods produced by an irruption of the sea 176
1 . Fable respecting the island of the Phlegyae - .
. ib.
2. Fable of the island Maurigasima 179
III. Local floods produced by the bursting of a lake without mention beingmade of the submersion of an island
- .
- ,
180
1. Tradition of the Arabs of Yaman respecting the bursting of an
artificial lake
ib.
2. Tradition respecting the disruption of the British lake Llion
185
5. Tradition of the North-Americans respecting the bursting of a lake
189
IV. Local floods not marked either by the bursting of a lake or by the
linking of an island
19.')
1. Egyptian legends
ib.
(1.) That of Prometheus
ib.
(2.) That of Menes
-194
(3.) That of Phoroneus .
.
195
2. Greek legends
196
(1.) That of Iuachus in Argolis ib.
(2.) That of Athens
197
(S.) That of Corinth
lb.
(4.) That of Deucalion in Thessaly
198
(5.) That of Ogyges in fieotia
199
(6.) That of the Rhodian or Cretan Telchines
200
3. Cilician legend
201
BOOK IV.
CHAPTER I.
Concerning the identity and astronomical character of the great
gods of the Gentiles -
All the gods of the Gentiles reeolve themselves into one person, the great
universal father
ib.
Xli
CONTENTS.
I
PAGE
I. The ancient mythologists unanimously assert, that each of their gods is

equally the Sun
1. Saturn
.
2. Jupiter
3. Pluto
4. Bacchus
-----5. Priapus
. 6. Apollo
7. Janus
-----8. Pan or Phanes
9. Hercules *10. Vulcan, Hephestus, Phtha, Ammun
-11. Esculapius, Asclepius
12. Mercury, Hermes, Thoth, Herm-Anubis, Theutates, Tuisto, Twashta, Tat, Datta, Buddha, Sacya
13. Mars, Ares, Theus-Ares
14. Osiris, Horus, Serapis
15. Belus, Baal, Molecb, Baal-Peor, Adrammelech, Anammelech
16. Adonis, Attis
17- Dagon, Siton, Dak-Po, Dagun, Pouti-Sat
206
ib.
ib.
ib.
ib.
ib.
ib.
207
ib.
ib.
ib.
ib.
ib.
ib.
208
ib.
209
ib.
18. Brahma, Vishnou, Siva

19- Mithras
----20. Hu, Beli, Belatucader, Abellion -
211
ib.
ib.
21. Vitzliputzli
22. Virachoca
----II. The ancient mythologists assert, that all their gods are the same person
212
ib.
213
CHAPTER II.
Respecting certam remarkable opinions which the Gentiles enter
tained ofthe Sun
215
I. The Sun was viewed as a mariner, placed either in a ship or in the ac

knowledged symbol of a ship
ib.
CONTENTS.
xiii
1 . Egyptian legends
2. Hindoo legends
3. Greek legends
4. Ship of the sphere -.
5. Gate or door of the Sun
II. The Sun was thought to have been plunged into the ocean
III. The Sun, when pursued by the ocean, took refuge in a floating island
1. -Legend of the Egyptian Horus
2. Legend of the Grecian Apollo
3. Legend of the Peruvian Virachoca
IV. The Sun delighted to dwell on the top of a sacred mountain, which
had been lelt dry by the retiring flood
Y. The Sun was born out of a floating egg, triplicated himself, and reigned
a sovereign prince upon earth
...
VI. The great god of the Gentiles, though acknowledged to be the Sun, is
yet positively declared to be a deified mortal
1. Origin of astronomical hero-worship
...
2. What particular man was venerated by the Gentiles in union with
the solar orb
.....
VII. Aptness of the physical character of the Sun for its union with that of
the deified great father
-
PAGE
g 15
216
217
218
ib.
219
ib.
ib.
220
221
222
ib.
223
g25
228
23 1
CHAPTER HI.
Respecting the division of the gentile mythologists into two great

primeval sects
233
I. Paganism divides itself into the two sects of Buddhism and Brahmenism,
the former being prior to the latter
-
ib.
CONTENTS.
T AC.
IT. The least ancient of them cannot have originated later than the building
of the tow er : and the more ancient seems to have been a step, in
the progress of corruption, preparatory to the other
III. The unmixed Scythians were peculiarly attached to the Huddhic super
stition, while the various mixed tribes rather affected the Brahmenical superstition
-..
IV. Wide extent of country, throughout which Buddhism is still professed
234
235
236
CHAPTER IV.
Respecting the human character of the great father, as exhibited

in the Osiric or Bacchic or Saivic or Brahmenical super
stition
-
-237
THe same person was equally venerated by the adherents of both super
stitions : they differed only in the mode. That person was the
great father Adam viewed as reappearing in the great father Noah
I. Horus, Osiris, Isis
1. Horus
2. Osiris, Argo, Danaus, Jason, Theba
3. Theocrasical identity of Osiris and Typhon
.
4. Priapus, Phanes, Baal-Peor, Dionusus, Silenus, Adonis
5. Typhon, Osiris, Seth, Sothi
. 6. Proper character of Typhon is the ocean at the time of the deluge
7. Typhon, Ahriman, Siva, Corybas, viewed as the murderer of a bro-J
ther
..
.
II. Adonis, Thammuz 1 . Legend of Adonis
.
-
ib.
238
23y
240
248
230
252
253
255
256
258
CONTLNTSk4
XV
'
2. Guealogy of Adonis III. Attis, Atys, Menes

IV. Asclepius, Esculapius, Esmuni
V. Bacchus, Dionusus
1. His dilaceratiou by the Titans
2. His descent into Hades
-v
3. His Orgies
4. His ark
5. His birth,on mount Meru
6. His nurse Hippa or Nusa
7. His genealogy
8. His character is compounded of Noah and Adam
VI. Deo-Naush
VII. Ishuren, Iswara, Siva, Brahma, Vishnou, Crishha
1. Indian Bacchus, Seba, Maidashuren, Siva
2. Death, Brahma, Brumius, Vagis, Bagis
3. Vishnon, Narayan, Tamas
*
-
4. Crishna
5. The Trimurti or triad of Hindostan is composed of the three sons of
Adam, viewed as reappearing in the three sons of Noah VIII. The Trimurti of Hindostan is the same as the classical triad of Jupi
ter, Neptune, and Pinto
1. Jupiter
(1.) Cretan Jupiter

(2.) Jupiter was universally worshipped
(3.) Jupiter-Sabazius (4.) Jupiter-Triophthalmus
2. Phito
(1.) Cabiri of Samothrace and India
...
(2.) The door of hell, the three judges, Styx, Menu, Charon
(3.) The helmet of invisibility
...
(4.) Proserpine
(5.) Muth, Dis, Mot, Mannus, Mantus
3. Neptune
(1.) Exploits of Neptune
(2.) Eumolpus, Cbione
IX. Hu, Dylan, Dwyvan, Noe, Aeddon
-
PAGE
259
260
262
263
2G4
ib.
205
ib.
267
268
269
270
272
274
ib.
277
279
281
283
285
286
287
290
292
293
294
295
298
299
300
ib.
302
ib. 303
304
xvi
CONTENTS.
X. American gods
1. Yo, Ho
2. Vitzliputzli, Mexitli, TIaloc
3. Virachoca, Pachacamac, Manco-Capac, Con, Tangatanga
XI. Otaheitean Ooro and triad
-
PAGE
307
ib.
31 1
317
323
CHAPTER V.
Respecting the human character of the great Jather, as exhibited
in the Buddhic or Thothic or Hermetic or Samancan theo
logy
-----
327
I. Buddha
ib.
1. Discordant opinions respecting him. A comparatively modern im
postor usurped his name by claiming to be one of his Avatars
328
2. His character melts into that of Vishnou and Menu-Satyavrata
330
3. Legend of Buddha
----332
4. Character of Buddha
336
II. Buddha of Ceylon. Gautameh
ib.
III. Buddha of Siam. Somono-Codom, Baouth
3S9
IV. Buddha of Thibet and Boutan. Fo, Teeshoo-Lama, Taranath
340
V. Buddha of China
- .
S41
1 . Passage of the name Buddha into the name To
342
2. Introduction of Buddhism into China
ib.
3. Legend of Fo-Hi
----343
4. Fo-Hi is the same as Fo or Buddha
345
5. Ancient Buddhism must have been the religion of China from the first
346
6. Buddha-Datta
----347
VI. Buddha of Cochin-China, Tonquin, Japan, and Tartary
348
VII. Three sects of Buddhists : proper Buddhists, Jainists, and Arhanists.
Jain and Arhan are the same as Buddha
-549
CONTENTS.
VIII. The various titles of Buddha have been communicated to his votaries
1. Enumeration of his titles
- .
2. Notice of the two primeval sects by Greek writers
IX. Buddha of Iran. Aboudad, Mahabad
...
X. Buddha of the Goths or Scythians
1 . Woden is the same person as Buddha
2. The name Woden is the same appellation as Voden or Poden
3. Character of Woden, and points of resemblance between him and
Buddha
-----XI. Buddha of the Celts
" 1 . Teutates, Hesus, Taranis
2. Budd, Man, Arawu, Tat, Saman
...
3. Buddhic titles are yet preserved in the names of various Scottish islets,
agreeably to the express testimony of Demetrius
XII. Summanus
-.
1. Head of Osiris
2. Head of Summanus
XIII. Janus or Jain
1. His history and character
2. His ship, his dove, and his mystic door

XIV. Vadimon, Vandimon
XV. Terminus, Betylus, Cappotas
XVI. Dagon or Siton
----1. Oannes, Annedot
2. Dogon, Dagun, Dak-Po, Doca 3. Dago, Taurico
4. Dagh-Dae
XVII. Hercules
- 1. In the garden of the Hesperides he is Adam
2. He identifies himself with Buddha, Dagon, Menu, or Dhermarajah
-----3. He was worshipped in Egypt and Phenicia
4. He was an infernal god
5. Hercules-Ogmius, Hercules-Magusan. He identifies himself with
Terminus and Mercury
.
.
XVIII. Mercury, Hermes
1 . Wide extent of Mercurial stone-worship
...
Pag. Idol.
vol. 11.
xvii
PAG E
349
ib.
350
352
354
ib.
355
356
360
36 1
362
366
367
368
ib.
369
ib.
37 1
373
374
377
378
ib.
380
ib.
ib.
381
ib.
382
383
384
386
387
c
xviii
CONTENTS.
PACE
2. Identity of Mercury and Buddha proved from the identity of their

titles
3. Proved further by arbitrary points of resemblance between them
4. Fabulous history of Mercury
.-.5. Mercury was an infernal god
....
XIX. Thoth
...-.1 . Taut of Phenicia
. ,
*
2. Taut or Thoth of Egypt
XX. Phtha, Vulcan, Hephestus, Aphthas, Twashta
XXI. M endes, Pan
...
1. Phallic Pan
.---.
2. Era of Pan
S. Character of Pan
XXII. Cupid, Cama, Eros, Caimis, Cainasson, Pothos, Maneros, Pappas
1 . He was the first-born lord of the Universe 2. He was exposed at sea in an ark 3. He is the same as Buddha
....
4. His genealogy
5. Lamentation for Maneros
6. Cupid and Psyche
7. The bow of Cupid
XXIII. Mithras
1. He was symbolized by a bull, a serpent, and a lion
2. His Mysteries, and birth from a rock
3. Persian triads
.
XXIV. Cadmus. He is the same character as Cadam or Somono-Codom
1. The hypothesis of Bochart respecting him 2. Cadmus was venerated in many countries besides Phenicia
3. His fabulous history .
XXV. Mars-Camulus or Cadmilus
.-..
1. He was the same as Mercury and Hercules 2. Respecting the universal worship of the sword-god
3. Mars was the piscine navicular great father XXVI. Respecting the birth of the Buddhic god from a virgin
L Mars
2. Buddha
3. Fo-Hi
r
-
388
395
396
398
ib.
ib.
S99
401
405
ib.
ib.
406
407
ib.
ib.
409
ib.
411
ib.
412
413
ib.
ib.
414
415
417
ib.
420
422
423
425
430
431
ib.
432
434
CONTENTS.
4. Mexitli
5. Vulcan or Phtha
6. Perseus
-----7. Zingis
-----XXVII. Perseus 1 . He was venerated in various parts of the world
2. He was represented like Mercury
3. He was the solar god exposed in an ark
4. Elucidation of some particulars in his history
5. He was a giant, like Buddha
XXVIII. The Cyclopes
----1. They were three in number
2. They are ascribed to the era of the deluge, and are said to be infernal
gods ; their chief being the same as Nilus or Oceanus 3. Cyclops is the same as Vulcan or Phtha ; the three Cyclopes, as the
three Cabiri ; and the seven Cyclopes, as the seven Cabiri
4. Fable of the single eye in the forehead of the Cyclopes XXIX. Memnon -----1. Memnon is the same character as the oriental Mahiman or MaimanOn
2. The legend of Memnon
(1.) He marches to Troy from the African Ethiopia
(2.) The difficulty of this story was felt by ancient writers ; who, to
mend the matter, would bring him out of Asiatic Ethiopia
(3.) The Africans however themselves claimed him ; and exhibited just
as decisive circumstantial evidence of his being their countryman, as
the Asiatics could do
(4.) He is also said to have been a sovereign of Egypt : and he was
represented by a marvellous gigantic statue'
(5.) The perplexities in his history are such, that some give up his
expedition to Troy in toto
-.
(6.) Utter impossibility of adapting his history to that of Troy
3. A discussion of the legend of Memnon
(1.) He was the great god of the Chusas or Ethiopians; and was
therefore worshipped in all their settlements, whether African or
Asiatic
(2.) Discordant opinions respecting the complexion of Buddha and
Memnon, both in the east and in the west -
xix
PAGE
434
434
ib.
ib.
436
437
439
440
ib.
441
442
444
445
447
448
ib.
449
450
ib.
45 1
452
453
457
458
459
ib.
462
XX
CONTENTS.
(3.) fie was the same as Osymandyas or Ismandes or Sesostris

(4.) The great father and the great mother were represented by two
gigantic statues. Various instances of this superstition
(.5.) Respecting the pillars and era of Sesostris
(6.) The funereal birds of Memnon were his priests
-
PAGE
466
467
472
476
CHAPTER VI.
Respecting the union of the two great superstitions in the worship
of Jagan-Nath, Saturn, and Baal
-
482
As the same object was venerated in both superstitions, we find them at

length uniting together in the worship of Jagan-Nath, Saturn, and
Baal
ib.
I. Jagan-Nath, Bal-Rama, Subhadra
ib.
1. The worship of Jagan-Nath is confessedly a point of union for all the
contending sects
ib.
(1.) Antiquity of his temple in Orissa
483
(2.) Jagan-Nath is the same both as Vishnou and Siva, but not the
same as either of them exclusively
ib.
2. Nature of the worship of Jagan-Nath
484
(1.) He is adored in conjunction with Bal-Rama and Subhadra. The
forms of these deities uuited produce the cypher Pranava, which repre
sents the holy monosyllabic divine name. But Om or Awm was the
triplicated great father, by whatever name he might be venerated
ib.
(2.) As Om therefore, all sects agree in worshipping the triplicated her
maphroditic Jagan-Nath
485
(3.) The' form of the god has been contrived on principles well known
to the ancient mythologists
486
(4.) Jagan-Nath is the same as Suman-Natb 488
CONTENTS.
XXI
PAGE
(5.) The present worship of Jagan-Nath, according to the general prac

tice of the Gentiles, is a disgraceful mixture of homicide and obscenity
II. Saturn, Cronus
----1 . Saturn, though immediately connected with the Brahmenical triad of
Jupiter, Neptune, and Pluto, yet identifies himself with the principal
god of the Buddhic superstition (1.) II, Ua (2.) Chiun, Chivan, Che-Kya, Remphan
(3.) Satyaur-Ata, Sei-Suther, Seater, day of Saturn
(4.) The name Saturn is most probably Babylonic or Chaldaic
2. The character of Saturn proves him to be Noah viewed as a reappear
ance of Adam
(1.) Character of Saturn as Adam
(2.) Character of Saturn as Noah III. Baal, Molech -----1 . Proofs of his identity with Saturn
2. Proof of his identity with Jagan-Nath and Buddha from his peculiar
worship and sacred footstep on the top of the mount of Olives
3. His character ascertained from the hitherto imperfectly-understood sar
casm, which the prophet Elijah employs in addressing his ministers.
Pag. Idol.
vOL. II.
489
ib.
ib.
490
ib.
491
493
ib.
ib.
494
500
ib.
502
ib.
xxu
EXPLANATION OF THE FIGURES IN PLATE II.
Fig.
1 . Vishnou floating in deep slumber on the folds of the great navicular sea-serpent,
while the whole earth is covered with water : Lacshmi chafing his feet : and
Brahma springing from his navel in the calix of the lotos. From an Indian
painting in Moor's Hind. Panth. pi. 7.
2. Buddha sleeping during the intermediate period between two worlds. From his
statue 18 cubits long in his temple at Oogul-Bodda.
3. Buddha seated in a contemplative posture ; bearing, as in the Inst representation
of him, the mystic trident on his head. This represents the lunar ship Argha
with the great father in the centre supplying to it the place of a mast. From
his statue in his temple at Oogul-Bodda.
4. Two colossal statues of the great father and the great mother near the palace of
Memnon in the Thebais. From Norden.
5. Crishna, an incarnation of Vishnou, with his three companions, his flocks, and his
herds, taking shelter from an impending danger, in a vast serpent ; which the
hero-god had formed for that special purpose. From Moor's Hind. Panth.
pi. 64.
6. Front view of a Cherub, as described by Ezekiel.
7. Side view of a Cherub, as described by Ezekiel.
8. Ardha-Nari, or the hermaphroditic god produced by the lateral union of Isani and
Isi. Origin of the fabulous Amazon. From Moor's Hind. Panth. pi. 24.
THE
ORIGIN
OF
PAGAN IDOLATRY.
BOOK III.
Pag. Idol.
VOL. II.
CHAPTER I
Respecting the Fable of the Four Ages.
_A.n ancient notion has very generally prevailed both in the east and in
the west, that there have been four successive ages, symbolized by the
four metals of gold, silver, brass, and iron, during which mankind gradu
ally degenerated from a state of peace and holiness to one of violence and
wickedness.
But this notion is not always exhibited precisely in the same
form : in the fables that have been founded upon it a variety may be ob
served, which at first might seem to involve a sort of contradiction, but
which in reality was only the natural consequence of the doctrine of an
endless succession of similar worlds.
The variety is this : the series of the four ages is sometimes deduced from
the creation, and sometimes from the deluge ; so that, when the two fables
are joined together, the series of the latter commences precisely where the
series of the former terminates. At the head of each series however the
great father, in the west denominated Cronus or Saturn, and by the oriental
Hindoos Menu, is universally placed : so that the four ages, in whatever
manner they are reckoned, always begin from the days of the great father ;
whence the golden age isproperly the age of the great father's manifestation
at the commencement of a new world.
THE ORIGIN OF PAGAN IDOLATRY.

Now, since world was believed to succeed world, and since each succes
sive manifestation of the great father was esteemed only a reappearance of

the same personage at the opening of each mundane system ; the golden age,
being the age of the great father, was of course placed at the beginning of
every world : and hence we perceive the cause, why the series of the four
ages, though always deduced from Saturn or Menu, is yet sometimes de
duced from the epoch of the creation and at other times from that of the
flood.
I. The fable itself properly relates to the period between the creation and
the deluge ; for the golden age, in absolute strictness, can only be applied to
the days of man's innocence and happiness in Paradise : but the ancient
mythologists, who delighted to trace a resemblance between the two worlds
as tending to establish their favourite doctrine of an endless succession of per
fectly similar mundane systems, perceived, that after the flood there was what
might be termed a new golden age.
This was indeed but a faint and imper
fect image of its predecessor : yet the similitude was sufficient to serve their
purpose, and as such it was eagerly caught at.
They observed, that the antediluvian world commenced with a period of
happiness and innocence; that the first man was an agriculturist; and that
he subsisted in a simple state on the fruits of the earth, without being sub
ject either to the artificial vices or restraints of civil society. They further
observed, that his primeval innocence was speedily corrupted ; and that
matters rapidly passed from bad to worse, until at length a profligate and
lawless generation was swept away by the waters of the flood. Now, since
the corruption was gradual, it was not unnatural to make a chronological
division of the period during which it took place : and, as the age of purity
was aptly represented by the noblest metal, so it was an obvious idea to
describe the subsequent progressive deterioration of manners by three me
tals, all inferior to gold, and each successively of less value than that which
preceded it.
Such were the first observations of the ancients ; but here they were little
incilned to stop. The iron age ushered in the deluge ; and the deluge was
followed by a new world and a new order of things. As the old world then
had commenced with a golden age, so likewise must the new : and they
found, that this, to a certain extent, was actually the case.
They observed,
that the renovated system began with a period, which, when compared to
the age of violence and licentiousness that had immediately preceded it,
might well be deemed a golden period of innocence and happiness, a period
of restored integrity and of renewed simplicity of manners. They observed,
that the first man of this reproduced world, like the first man of the former
world, was an agriculturist ; that he dwelt in the very same Paradisiacal re
gion of the globe which his predecessor had tenanted ; and that he too, free
alike from the vices and restraints of advanced society, enjoyed the artless
freedom of rural life, and subsisted on the productions of all- bountiful nature.
And they observed, that a deterioration of manners, which, in point both of
violence and licentiousness, bore a striking resemblance to the progressive
corruption of the antediluvians, speedily succeeded the golden age of the
great postdiluvian father. Hence the four ages were placed after the flood,
no less than before it : and hence it was assumed, that every new world
would similarly commence with a period of gold, which would similarly be
followed by those of silver, brass, and iron.
II. But here an obvious difficulty arose. In the antediluvian world, the
iron age was succeeded in the tenth generation by the flood ; and a new series
forthwith commenced with the new world : but, in that new world, though it
was easy to specify the age of gold, and though the progress of corruption
soon introduced what might well be esteemed an age of iron, no deluge occur
red in the tenth generation, nor did another mundane system occupy the
place of its lately renovated predecessor. Here then was a difficulty of no
trifling nature, which they, who advocated the doctrine of a succession of
similar worlds, had to contend with. They had pointed out an age of gold,
and they found themselves living in an age of iron : but the tenth generation
rolled away, and the world which they inhabited was destroyed neither by a
flood of water nor by a deluge of fire. Where then were the limits of the
age of iron to be fixed ? Had it not as yet commenced ; or was it to be
extended to an indefinite length ? The manners of the times proved but too
decisively, that it had commenced : and the arrival of the tenth generation
afforded a sufficient argument for those, who delighted in analogical deduction,
that the beginning of a new series might be expected, and that the reforma
tion of another golden age might be hoped for.
CHAP. i.
THE ORIGIN OF PAGAN IDOLATRT.

Now, as I have already had occasion elsewhere to observe,1 precisely in
this tenth generation a partial reform did take place, and an awful event oc
curred which by those in its vicinity appears evidently for a season to have
been mistaken for a destruction of the world by a deluge of fire. The preter
natural call of Abraham from Ur of Chaldea must have excited very general
attention : and, in the then early state of colonization, must -have been
known throughout a great part of the imperfectly peopled east; because
Chaldea was the central point from which the rudiments of each future nation
proceeded, and because most probably as yet they had by no means reached
the utmost extremities of the vast Asiatic continent. The knowledge of his
call would be yet further spread by the wandering life, to which he devoted
himself. And this life, which withdrew him from the artificial habits of
settled society, and which in some measure presented an image of the
primeval simplicity of the golden age : this life, united with the pristine in
tegrity and holiness of his manners, would readily suggest to those, who
were already on the tiptoe of expectation, that Abraham was a reappearance
of the great father, and that with him a new age of gold was now commenc
ing. The idea would be strengthened by the miraculous destruction of
Sodom and Gomorrha ; and, when it was found that the subversion of those
cities was neither the end of the world nor the prelude to it, a new modifica
tion of the fable of the four ages would be the natural consequence.
This fable, in its original state, described the gradual deterioration of
manners from the commencement to the termination of a world ; and taught,
that each successive world would experience the very same deterioration,
w hich would regularly bring on its destruction either by fire or water, when a
new world w ould usher in a new series of ages : but now the theory was found
to be not altogether true in matter of fact ; and some different arrangement
must be contrived, which might still preserve its plausibility, and which
might prevent the necessity of its total abandonment. Such an arrangement
accordingly was devised : and, since it had been perceived that the postdi
luvian iron age did not precede a second destruction of the world, but only
ushered in a partial reformation and a faint image of the golden age in one
particular family (the national golden age of the people Israel); it was then
1 Vide supra b. i. c. 2. sect. xiii.
THE ORIGIN OF PAGAN IDOLATKT,
asserted, that the four ages succeeded each other in perpetual rotation, that
the iron age of one series was ever followed by the golden age of another,
that there were many such cycles in the duration of each world, and that,
although an iron age would at length be assuredly the harbinger of a general
deluge, there would be many reformations of manners and many successive
degeneracies, previous to the awful catastrophe of a complete mundane
dissolution.
This is the doctrine of the Hindoos. They invariably make their golden
age commence with the appearance of a Menu, and they invariably suppose
the golden age to be followed by three others of progressive corruption :
but, in each Manwantara or mundane reign of a Menu, they place seventyone cycles of four ages each ; and believe, that every world is destroyed only
at the end of the iron age of the last cycle, that is to say, at the end of the
complete Manwantara. In this arrangement, the difficulty is, how to make
each cycle begin with a Menu : for they were well aware, that the proper
golden age was the Paradisiacal age of the first Menu or great father; and
they were no less aware, that the true epoch of the great father's appearance
was the commencement of each Manwantara or of each grand cosmical revo
lution. If then the great father was manifested in the golden age at the
beginning of every Manwantara, immediately after the retiring of the inter
mediate deluge, on the waters of which he had floated in a state of deep
meditative slumber : if such was the true period of his manifestation, if the
golden age was invariably his peculiar age, and if yet there were no less than
seventy-one golden ages in the course of each Manwantara; how, under these
circumstances, could every golden age be the age of a Menu, when his real
era was the period immediately after the intermediate deluge or that first
golden age with which all new worlds are supposed constantly to open?
The way, in which they managed the difficulty that necessarily resulted from
the new modification of the fable, was this : they maintained, that every
Manwantara or entire mundane revolution was the reign of every Menu over
his own proper world ; but that, as every Manwantara comprized seventyone cycles of four ages, and as it was incongruous to place a holy personage
in times of impurity, each Menu only reigns personally in each golden age
and disappears in the three corrupt ages that follow it, continuing to dive
THE ORICIN OF PAGAN IDOLATRY.
and emerge like a water-fowl (such is their comparison) until the close of
his Manwantara.1
It is obvious, that this opinion involves the belief, that every reformer of
mankind, who should start up at the close of what might be deemed an iron
age, was a reappearance of Menu or the great father. Such, accordingly,
was the precise notion which the Phenicians, who were a colony of Scythic
Hindoos, entertained of Abraham, as may easily be collected from the
mythic history of Sanchoniatho. They termed him Cronus or Hits, which
like Menu was the proper appellation of the great father : and yet they
sufficiently shewed, what person they literally intended, by asserting, that
this Ilus once reigned in Palestine, that he sacrificed his only son who was
born to him of trie nymph Anobret, and that he first introduced the rite of
circumcision.1 Now the bestowing upon Abraham the title of Ilus or Menu
proves, that they esteemed him a reappearance of Menu ; otherwise, why
should they give him the name ? And this opinion, which they entertained of
him, exactly accords both with the speculations of their Indo-Scythic fore
fathers, and with the peculiarities of Abraham's own history. He flourished
in the tenth generation after the flood ; as Noah, or Menu-Satyavrata, did in
the tenth descent after the creation : he lived at the end of what would be
deemed the postdiluvian iron age, as Noah did at the end of the antedilu
vian iron age : like Noah, he had communication with God, and was a
preacher of righteousness : and, like Noah, he was a reformer of corrupt
manners, and was therefore considered as the introducer of the golden age
of a new cycle.
We shall now see the reason, why the circumstance of his living in the
tenth generation after the flood is noticed so industriously by those ancient
pagan writers, who have mentioned him. Berosus and Eupolemus are alike
curious in specifying this genealogical particular and in dwelling on the jus
tice and uprightness of Abraham.' In doing so they are perfectly accurate
no doubt ; but it was not a mere love of accuracy, which induced them to
record such particulars. The appearance of Abraham in the tenth post
diluvian generation, and his eminent character for justice and integrity,
1 Asiat. Res. vol. ii. p. 112, 126.
* Euseb. Praep. Evan. lib. i. c. 10. lib. iv. c. l6.
3 Joseph. Ant. Jud. lib. i. c. 7, Euseb. Praep. Evan. lib. ix. c. 17-
THE OltlGIN OF PAGAN IDOLATRY.
caused him to be deemed a new manifestation of the great father; who is

honourably distinguished, in the writings both of Moses and Sanchoniatho,
by the title of Sadik or the just man: and this appearance of his precisely
in the tenth generation, and this character which he bore of justice, are
mentioned by Berosus and Eupolemus, because to these points the atten
tion of his contemporaries, who deemed him a new Cronus or Menu, was
particularly directed.
Such then was the manner, in which originated the theory of many suc
cessive cycles of the four ages in the course of each mundane revolution.
Finding that in the tenth postdiluvian generation the then state of the
world corresponded with the character of the iron age, finding however that
no deluge came to sweep away mankind from off the face of the earth, and
yet finding that a just man then arose to bear his testimony against the pre
vailing iniquities : the ancient mythologists of the east were reduced to
adopt the supposition, that the iron age was not always the harbinger of a
flood ; but that, when one cycle of four ages had expired, another com
menced with the appearance of a Menu and with an attempt at reformation,
which in some measure revived the integrity of the golden or Saturnian age.
Agreeably to such a theory, the Hindoos are wont to esteem the manifesta
tion of any remarkable character the reappearance of a Menu or a Buddha
or a Salivahana, all which tkles are descriptive of one and the same person,
and to reckon this manifestation the commencement of a new series of ages.
Thus the oriental heretics early corrupted Christianity, by pretending that
Jesus was a Buddha or Salivahana : thus the Arabian impostor Mohammed
was thought to be another Salivahana : and thus the appearance both of
Jesus and Mohammed was equally said to constitute a new chronological era.1
Such a notion was the more plausibly adopted by those philosophizing con
verts of the east, who sought to engraft Christianity upon the old stock of
Paganism, because the evangelical prophet has foretold the birth of the
Messiah in language borrowed from the imagery of the golden or Paradisiacal
age. The future Saviour of mankind was to destroy the wicked from off the
face of the earth, and to introduce afresh the reign of equity and righteous' See Asiat. Res. vol. ix. p. 212 et infra., vol. x. p. 27 et infra.
Pag. Idol.
vol. ii.
10
', ness. Justice was to be the girdle of his loins, and faithfulness the girdle of
his reins. The wolf once more, as of old in Eden, was to dwell with the
lamb; and the leopard was to lie down with the kid. A joung child, the
mysterious infant who was vainly deemed the new-born Menu of a fresh
series of ages, was to lead with one band the calf, the lion, and the fatling ;
was to play, with perfect safety, on the hole of the asp ; and was fearlessly
to lay his hand on the den of the cockatrice. The cow and the bear were
to feed together : the lion was to eat straw like the ox. Destruction was
again to be unknown throughout that holy mountain of Jehovah ; which,
like the Meru or Ida of the Hindoos, was a transcript of the sacred hill of
Paradise : and a flood of religious knowledge, boundless as the interminable
diluvian ocean, should sweep away every remnant of corruption, and should
diffuse itself over the surface of the whole earth.1
A similar idea of an age of iron being succeeded by an age of gold was
carried likewise into the west : and the poet, who most distinctly exhibits
it, has been equally indebted to the mythological speculations of the oriental
sages and the glowing imagery of the Hebrew prophet. The Pollio of Virgil,
though replete with allusions to that mystic theology in which he was so
profoundly versed, is yet so strongly tinged with the peculiar phraseology of
Isaiah, that I think it only not demonstrable that he had read and availed
himself of the Greek translation of the Jewish Scriptures. In this extra
ordinary poem, he celebrates the expected birth of a wonderful child, who
was destined to put an end to the age of iron and to introduce a new age of
gold.
The last period, sung by the Sibylline prophetess, is now arrived : and the
grand series of ages, that series which recurs again and again in the course
of one mundane revolution, begins afresh. Now the virgin Astrea returns
from heaven ; and the primeval reign of Saturn recommences : now a new
race descendsfrom the celestial realms of holiness. Do thou, Lucina, smile
propitious on the birth of a boy ; who will bring to a close the present age of
iron, and introduce throughout the whole world a new age of gold. Then
shall the herds no longer dread the fury of the lion, nor shall the poison of
' Isaiah xi. 49-
11
the serpent any longer be formidable : every venomous animal, and every
deleterious plant, shall perish together. Thefields shall be yellow with corn,
the grape shall hang in ruddy clusters from the bramble, and honey shall
distil spontaneously from the rugged oak.
The universal globe shall enjoy
the blessings of peace, secure under the mild sway of its new and divine
sovereign.
Thus, after a long period of rapine and licentiousness, was the golden age
to appear again, and the ever revolving cycle to commence afresh : thus
accurately does the mythological poet express the sentiments of the oriental
philosophers.
Nor is this all : while he exhibits to us the doctrine of successive cycles
occurring throughout the vast duration of a whole Manwantara, he hints
also at that great catastrophe, which closed the real iron age, and which was
followed by a second imperfect age of gold.
According to the Hindoos,
every mundane system terminates with a deluge, on the surface of which

the great father floats in the ship Argha : and, when the waters retire, he
and the vessel which had sustained him assume for a season the form of
doves, until they are manifested at the commencement of the new world, as
the parents of three sons and through them of the renovated human race.
Now the Argha of the Hindoos is palpably the Argo of the Egyptians and
the classical writers: consequently, the fictitious voyage of the Argo. is no
other than the diluvian voyage of the Argha or Ark.
Hence Virgil, true to
the doctrine of a succession of similar worlds, in each of which every event

was but a repetition of a parallel former event, tells us, that, when the great
series of ages commences afresh with that of gold, there shall be another
Argo manned with chosen heroes and another Tiphys to steer it safely over
the mighty deep, another eminent attempt at navigation, another beginning
of civil society, and another Achilles to destroy another Ilium.
III. The several descriptions, which are given of the golden age, prove
very clearly, that, however it may have been afterwards applied to represent
the period immediately subsequent to the flood, its real prototype was the
age of innocence and happiness in Paradise.
1 . Plato informs us, that, in the first arrangement of things which was
ordained of God, there were neither human politics, nor the appropriation
12
of wives and children ; but that all lived in common upon the exuberant
productions of the earth.
They had abundance of fruits and trees : and
they were blessed with a soil so rich, that it brought forth those fruits spon
taneously and without the labour of cultivation.
They spent their time in
the open air, and they associated together without shame in a state of naked
ness. They conversed, not only with each other, but likewise with the
beasts : yet God was their special guardian ; and by a peculiar interposition
provided them with food, as men are now wont to provide for the inferior
domestic animals.
He mentions, that he had learned these particulars from
an ancient fable : and concludes with saying, that suchmatters must be laid
aside, until some meet interpreter of them should be revealed.1
Though it is not impossible, that Plato in the course of his travels may
have become acquainted with the writings of Moses, and that the exordium
of Genesis may be the ancient fable to which he alludes, yet I doubt whether
these opinions were exclusively borrowed from the Pentateuch : I should
rather be inclined to believe, that, if ever the philosopher did indeed meet
with that venerable book, he was struck with finding in it a narrative that
remarkably accorded with the traditions which had been handed down by his
own ancestors. That he ever perused the book of Genesis, must be a matter
of uncertainty ; but, that he received his knowledge of the Paradisiacal age
from the legends of his country, is indisputable, because he himself positively
declares that such was the case. Our forefathers, says he, who sprang up
immediately af ter the first revolution, delivered these things unto us. His
knowledge therefore was traditionally derived from his Hellenic progenitors :
and he wrote only from the common stock of information equally possessed
by all his inquiring contemporaries. The great revolution, of which he here
speaks, can only, as it appears to me, be the deluge.
It follows therefore,
that Plato's notions of a primitive state of happy innocence, whether we may

or may not suppose them to have been corrected and modified by an acquain
tance with the divinely inspired theology of the Hebrews, were yet originally
received, down the stream of unbroken tradition, from the first post-diluvians. That he meant the age of Paradise by the golden period which he
so particularly describes, is manifest from one remarkable circumstance
which I have already had occasion to notice. He asserts, that the deprava1 Plat. Polit. p. 271, 272.
THE ORIGIN OF PAGAN IDOLATRY".
13
tion of the soul, by which it was reduced to a state of spiritual bondage,

commenced at the close of the golden age.1
Now we are well assured, thvt
this depravation took place at the end of the Paradisiacal age.
The age
therefore of Paradise mu3t inevitably be the fabled age of gold.

2. That Plato's account of the first period was received traditionally,
however it might have been improved by extrinsical information, appears
from its coincidence with other similar narratives both in prose and in verse.
Dicearchus the Peripatetic, as we learn from Porphyry, undertook to de
scribe what he calls the ancient mode of living among the Greeks, but what
was really the life of the primeval antediluvian age which every nation spe
cially appropriated to its own peculiar ancestors. The first men, according
to this writer, were born near to the gods, were of a most .excellent nature,
and lived most holy lives : so that, when compared with the degenerate
modern race of mortals, they might well be esteemed a golden generation.
At that time, nothing which had life was slaughtered : and, from the universal
felicity which then prevailed, the poets borrowed their pictures of the golden
age. This age, Dicearchus adds, was the age of Cronus or Saturn.*
3. With such accredited traditions agree the legendary accounts of the
poets.
JVhen gods and mortal men, says Hesiod, were Jirst horn together, the
golden age commenced, the precious gift of the deities who acknowledged
Cronus as their sovereign. Mankind then led the life of the gods, free
from tormenting cares, and exemptfrom labour and sorrow.
Old age was
unknown. Their limbs were braced with a perpetual vigour ; and the evils
of disease were unfelt. When at length the hour of dissolution arrived,
death assumed the mild aspect of sleep, and laid aside all his terrors. Every
blessing teas their own. The fruits of the earth sprang up spontaneously
and abundantly.
Peace reigned : and her companions were happiness and
pleasure?
The manner, in which he accounts for the change from this blissful condition,
both clearly points out the period alluded to, and bears strongly impressed
upon it the marks of primitive tradition.
Originally, says he, the tribes of
' Plat. Polit. p. 251.

* Porph. de abstin. lib. iv. sect. 2.
3 lies. Oper. et dier. lib. i. ver. 108 119.
14
men lived upon the earth, free from those evils and labours and diseases
which produce old age: but the frst woman, endowed by the gods with
every accomplishment, yet destined to be the ruin of prying man, opened a
fatal casket, and let out miseries and calamities innumerable.
Too late,
when her mischievous curiosity was satisfied, she replaced the lid: but sea
and land were now alike replete with evil; hope alone remained at the bottom
of the casket.1
I think it evident, that this legend contains a disguised history of the fall :
for the whole connection, in which it stands, seems imperiously to demand
such a supposition. Hence I am not disposed to censure the conjecture of
Cluverius, that that hope, which is said to have been left alone in the casket,
is the uever-forgotten hope of redemption through a Saviour who should at
once bruise the head of the serpent and be offered up as a sacrifice for sin.*
The account, which Ovid gives of the golden age, is but a transcript from
Hesiod : the same primeval simplicity, and the same universal happiness,
are equally celebrated by the Roman bard as essential characteristics of the
ancient reign of Saturn. 5
4. A similar idea occupied the minds of our Gothic ancestors.
The first inhabitants of the world, according to the usual system of the
pagan nations which elevated the great father and his children to the rank of
demon-gods, were considered by them as something more than human.
Their abode was a magnificent hall glittering with burnished gold, the mansion
oflove, joy, and friendship.
The very meanestof their utensils were compos
ed of the same precious material; and the age itself acquired the denomination
of golden. Such was the happiness of the primitive race of mortals ; a hap
piness, which they were destined not long to enjoy. The blissful period of
innocence was soon contaminated. Certain women arrived from the country
of the giants ; and, by their seductive blandishments, corrupted the pristine
integrity and purity.4
In this tradition, we may observe, as well as in that of the fabulous Pan
dora, the introduction of sin at the close of the golden age is ascribed to
female agency : but it seems probable, that the two legends do not relate to
* Hes. Oper. et dier. lib. L ver. 59 105.
3 Ovid. Metara. lib. i. ver. 89112.
* Cluver. Germ. Ant. p. 225.

* Edda. Fab. vii.
THE ORIGIN OF PAGAN IDOLATRY'.
15
precisely the same circumstance. The transgression of Eve is the obvious

prototype of the fatal curiosity of Pandora : but the arrival of women from
the country of the giants, and their intercourse with a distinct and more
pure line of mortals, can scarcely fail of bringing forcibly to our recollection
the marriages of the sons of Seth with the daughters of Cain, which were the
principal cause of the universal depravity of the antediluvians.1
5. The same belief in a primitive state of holiness may be traced no less
distinctly in the fables of Hindostan.
There can arise little doubt, to adopt the words of Mr. Maurice, but
that by the Satya age or age of perfection, the golden age of classical
mythology, the Brahmens obscurely allude to the state of perfection
and happiness enjoyed by man in Paradise.
It is impossible to explain
what the Indian writers assert, concerning the universal purity of manners
and the luxurious and unbounded plenty prevailing in that primitive era,
without this supposition* Justice, truth, philanthropy, were then practised
among all the orders and classes of mankind.
There was then no extortion,
no circumvention, nofraud, used in their dealings with one another. Perpe

tual oblations smoked on the altars of the Deity ; every tongue uttered
praises ; and every heart glowed with gratitude to the Supreme Creator.
The gods, in token of their approbation of the conduct of mortals, condescend
ed frequently to become incarnate and to hold personal converse with the
yet undepraxed race ; to instruct them in arts and sciences ; to unveil their
own sublime functions and pure nature ; and to make them acquainted with
the economy of those celestial regions, into which they were to be imme
diately translated when the period of their terrestrial probation expired.1
Nor is this notion of late origin among the Hindoos : Calanus, according
to Strabo, held much the same language, with the addition of particularizing
the lapse of the first race and the consequent necessity of procuring by la
bour the necessaries of life. Formerly, said he, corn of all sorts abounded
as plentifully as dust does at present ; and thefountains pouredforth streams,
some of water, some of milk, some of honey, some of nine, and some of oil.
Owing to this luxurious abundance, man became corrupt, and fell into all
kinds of wickedness; insomuch that Jupiter, disgusted with such a scene,
' Gen. vi. 2, 4.
1 Hi*t. of Hind. vol. i. p. 371.
16
book m. abolished the ancient order of things, and permitted the necessaries of life
to be obtained only through the medium of labour.1
A tradition thus cir
cumstantial seems to me to be little more than a transcript of the scriptural

account of Paradise, of the fall, and of God's denunciation against Adam
that the ground should be cursed for his sake and that in the sweat of his
face he should eat bread.*
The Hindoos sometimes express the deterioration of the Paradisiacal state
in a figurative manner. The former seas (according to their allegorical
writers) of milk, butter, honey, and wine, have either wholly disappeared,
or have become salt and bitter: and the colour of the white island has been
changed into black on account of the sins of mankind.'
6. To the preceding Hindoo legends may properly be subjoined the
curious traditional fable of the Jains, a sect who worship Buddha or Menu
under the title of Jain-Eswara.
These suppose, like the firahmenists, that the great mundane periods,
as well as their subdivisions, revolve again and again to all eternity : and,
like them also, they particularly notice among the subdivisions a cycle of
four ages. The first of these ages exactly corresponds with the golden age
of the classical writers : but, in addition to the commonly specified charac
teristics, a remarkable particular is introduced into the account of it Dur
ing its continuance, we are told, that men subsisted on the produce of ten
celestial trees ; that there were no kings; that all were abundantly blessed ;
and that the people, M ho then flourished, were distinguished by the appellation
of the supremely happy inhabitants of the earth.*
Perhaps it is almost superfluous to observe, that the notion of these ten
celestial trees has manifestly been borrowed from the fruit-bearing trees of
the semi-celestial garden of Paradise.
IV. Since then the first or golden age is evidently that of man's innocence
in Eden, Saturn or Cronus, in other words the great father, who, by whatever
name he may be distinguished, is the prince of that age, must by a necessary
consequence be the patriarch Adam.
Accordingly, Ovid places all the four
ages before the flood : and, after assigning the first or the age of Saturn to
1 Strab. Gcog. lib. xv. p. 715.
s Asiat. Res. vol. viii. p. 302.
* Gen. iii. 17, 18, 19* Asiat. Res. vol. ix. p. 257, 258.
17
the period which immediately succeeds the creation, he represents, in a man

ner perfectiy corresponding with Scripture, the three following ages as gra.
dually introducing a greater and greater degree of corruption and lawless
violence, until at length the supereminent wickedness of the iron age be
comes the moral cause of the deluge.
Yet the whole history of Saturn or Cronus or the great father equally
proves him to be the patriarch Noah : hence, when he is viewed under this
character, the golden age "must be placed immediately after the flood. And
here, accordingly, we find it placed by the Hindoos.
1. The Brahmenical mythologists represent it, as synchronizing with the
four first Avatars or incarnate descents of Vishnou ; the three former of
which, as Sir William Jones rightly observes, relate to some stupendous
convulsion of our globe from the fountains of the great deep. But we must
not adopt in its full extent the opinion of this learned writer, which fixes the
Satya Yug exclusively to the period that immediately succeeds the deluge.
The Hindoos hold the doctrine of a series of worlds, each of which is equally
preceded by a flood and by the escape of the great father with seven compa
nions in an ark. Consequently, in ascribing their Satya Yug to the period
after the deluge, they by no means limit it to the postdiluvian age of Noah :
they merely assign it to the earliest period of every world. This will account
for an apparent contradiction in their theology. When they descend to de
scription, they paint the Satya Yug in such colours as agree only with the
state of Paradisiacal innocence and happiness : but, when they arrange their
four ages chronologically, we find ourselves in the present or postdiluvian
world. In fact, the progress of corruption in the new world bore a strong
resemblance, as I have already observed, to that in the old world : and, as
the iron age of the former produced the catastrophe of the flood ; so, at the
yet future close of the Cali or iron age of the latter, the Hindoos place the
tenth incarnation of Vishnou, who will then be manifested for the dissolution
of the present mundane system.
Such, I have little doubt, is the original and consistent form of the legend ;
though it does not accord with that modification of it, which exhibits many
cycles of the four ages as revolving in the course of a single Manwantara or
mundane reign of Menu. Sir William Jones has remarked, that the progress
Pag. Idol.
vol. ii.
18
of time after the deluge naturally divides itself into four periods : 1 and it may
be observed with equal propriety, that a similar division of time before
the deluge obviously presents itself as we read the Mosaical history.
The age of Paradise is the golden age : the age, which succeeded the fall
while as yet mankind were few in number, is the silver age : the age of the
Nephilim, or tyrannical and gigantic oppressors of the line of Cain, is the
brazen age : and the age of the promiscuous intermarriages of the children of
Cain and the children of Seth, which speedily occasioned an universal law
lessness and depravity of manners, is the iron age. *
2. The legend of the Jains ought, I think, to be understood precisely in
the same manner : though, as the Hindoo chronologers chiefly describe
postdiluvian time in their account of the four Yugs; so these Buddhic sec
taries, like Ovid, have especially fixed their attention upon antediluvian
time.
The first age, as we have recently seen, was that of the ten celestial trees ;
and the people of it were distinguished by the name of the supremely happy
inhabitants of the earth. On the commencement of the second age, the
miraculous gifts of the heavenly trees were less than in the former age,
though they still supplied the wants of mankind: but the men of that age
were inferior in complexion, stature, strength, and longevity ; hence they
were called the moderately happy inhabitants of the earth. This was fol
lowed by the third age: and, during its period, the people were still more
straitened in the produce of the celestial trees, as well as again inferior to
their predecessors in longevity, colour, health, and happiness ; hence they
were named the least happy inhabitants of the earth. During these three
periods there were born at different times fourteen Menus ; and the last was
the father of a personage denominated Vrishabhanatha Tirthacar. In the
fourth age, no miraculous fruits were produced by the heavenly trees; and,
when now destruction seemed to be nearly approaching to mankind through
their disappearance, Tirthacar became incarnate as the son of the four
teenth Menu. By his auspicious birth, and by his instructions, the know
ledge of good and bad, of possible and impossible, and of the mode of
* Asiat. Res. vol. i. p. 236, 237.
* See Gen. vi. 4.

acquiring the advantages both of earth and heaven, was obtained.
19
He also
arranged the various duties of mankind, and allotted to men the several
means of subsistence. In consequence of this arrangement, he became king
over all mankind, and composed the four sacred books. Thus did he esta
blish the religion of the Jains in its four castes, delivering to their care the
charge of those sacred volumes. He also composed several books on the
sciences, for the improvement of mankind. After he had settled laws and
regulations of all sorts, mankind, from that period, began to follow his in
stitutions, looking upon him, in every respect, as equal to God : and, upon
his departure from this world to the state of the Almighty, his image was
worshipped as Jain-Eswara.1
It is easy to perceive, though no direct mention is made of the flood,
that Tirthacar is the same as Menu-Satyavrata, who was saved in an ark,
who preserved the arts and sciences of a former world, and who was acknow
ledged as the universal sovereign of mankind.
The four ages of the Jains
therefore are antediluvian : but they are not exclusively so ; for, as there
have already been many similar cycles, so likewise will there be hereafter.
Numerous have been the Tirthacars of long-expired cycles : and these
ancient Tirthacars, all of whom like Noah were endowed with the gift of
prophecy, foretold the future succession of other Tirthacars who should be
manifested in the various worlds of the indestructible universe.
3. These remarks will lead us to understand by analogy the fable of the
four ages, as it is exhibited by Hesiod with a curious discrepance from the
same fable as detailed by the Roman poet.
Hesiod derives the birth of Cronus and his three sons, together with the
whole generation both of mortals and of immortals, from that watery chaotic
mixture, out of which the habitable world was produced. This watery mixturCi
lucti is described as bcm^ Ltic origin of all titings, is certainly the
same as the universal deluge, which the Hindoos place between each two
successive worlds and out of which the great father is considered as being
mysteriously regenerated. The Cronus therefore of Hesiod is the great
father, viewed either as Adam or as Noah : for each of those patriarchs was
1 Asiat. Res. vol. is. p. 258, 259.
20
' equally supposed to have been born out of the' watery Chaos at the com
mencement of his own peculiar world.
Now Cronus, after his birth, is said to have flourished during the period
of the golden age : and that age is described by Hesiod in a manner, which
obviously refers us to the age of Paradise. The golden age is followed by
the silver age, when a partial deterioration of manners takes place : and men
are now said to have become inferior to their predecessors, both in nature
and in understanding. To the silver age succeeds the brazen age, which
introduces a yet greater and more extensive depravation. The men, who
lived during that period, were fierce, strong, warlike, and insolent. Their
hearts were of adamant : their corporeal strength was immense : and their
nervous arms, firmly knit to their broad shoulders, were irresistible. We
are now brought to the age of lawless violence: and, when we are in full
expectation that the iron age will follow and that the World will then be
dissolved in consequence of the irreclaimable wickedness of its inhabitants,
we are suddenly presented with a very unlooked for amendment. During a
fourth age, not iron but heroic, a reformation is effected : and we find our
selves unawares in the postdiluvian world. A generation of demi-gods,
juster and better than their predecessors, springs up. These are they, who
fought against Thebes and Troy. When removed from the present state of
earthly existence, the almighty father allotted to them for their residence
the isles of the blessed, which are seated at the very extremity of the earth
and which are washed by the eddies of the deep ocean.1
Here then we have a reformation instead of a dissolution : and thus the
arrangement of Hesiod seems to correspond with the Hindoo theory, which
places more than one cycle of the four ages within the period of each Manwantara. It may therefore be assumed as indisputable, so far at least as the
letter is concerned, that these four ages of Hesiod are postdiluvian, and
consequently that his Cronus is Noah.
But it is just so far as the letter, and no further. If we more attentively
observe the tradition which he has handed down to us, we shall perceive,
that the idea of antediluvian times is never once lost, that his four ages
Hesiod. Oper. et dier. lib. i. ver. 120171.

agreeably to the dogma of a succession of similar cycles have a double reference, and that in effect he makes them like Ovid terminate with the flood;
He describes his golden age as synchronizing with the formation of Pan
dora : for he tells us, that, after her fatal curiosity had been gratified, men
first began to taste affliction and to experience old age ; to neither of which
they had been subjected before she opened the casket. Now this precisely
accords with the change, which he represents as taking place, when the golden
age terminated and when the silver age commenced. During the former,
men were free from labour and trouble, and were not liable to the pains and
decrepitude of old age: but, during the latter, they no longer enjoyed a
similar exemption.1 The golden age of Hesiod then was marked by a free
dom from the penalty of death ; for such is evidently implied in the declara
tion, that men never tasted sickness and never grew old : and it coincided
with that period of the first woman's life, which preceded her transgression
and the consequent introduction of death and calamity.* But this description
answers only to the Paradisiacal age ; and to that age it minutely answers in
every particular. Therefore the Paradisiacal age must inevitably be the
prototype of Hesiod's golden age ; and, when it is thus viewed, his Cronus
must certainly be Adam.
If we next pass to his silver age, we shall find this conclusion abundantly
confirmed. Men are now become mortal : but still their longevity is decidedly
the longevity, not of postdiluvianism, but of antediluvianism. He speaks of
them, as remaining infants for the space of a whole century, and as afterwards
having their lives shortened not in the common course of nature but solely
by the sword of violence. They are cut off in the flower of their youth, after
a childhood of a hundred years, by bloody feuds and intestine discord, not
by a peaceful and gradual decay. Could they have abstained from war and
Hesiod. Oper. et dier. lib. i. ver. 83 104. ver. 108 125.
* Hesiod does indeed represent his first race, as dying and as afterwards becoming herogods ; but this involves a plain contradiction to what he had previously said, which clearly
implies an exemption from death. Yet even such a contradiction, palpable tis it may seem,
is after all nothing more than a literal statement of real matter of fact. The first race was
originally constituted immortal : but, in consequence of sin, they died and (as Hesiod says)
were buried. They were also (as he no less truly remarks) subsequently deified, and wor
shipped as demons by their posterity. See ver. 120125,
CHAP-14
22
boo in.
THE ORIGIN OF PAGA.N IDOLATRY.
mutuai injuries, their adult lives might have been prolonged in proportion to
their infancy : whenever their allotted term was shortened, it was solely, as
the poet observes, in consequence of their own folly.1 Before the flood
men were made mortal ; but it was not until after the flood, that their lives
began to be abbreviated. An infancy of a century can only be said to have
occurred in antediluvian times : therefore Hesiod's silver age, not merely by
its succession to his golden age, but likewise by internal evidence furnished
from itself, must be placed before the deluge.
i
His brazen age exhibits the transactions of the brazen and iron ages of
Ovid : and its succession to the golden and silver ages which have been
shewn to be antediluvian, as well as its own peculiar character of bloodshed
and licentiousness, proves, that it also must be deemed antecedent to the
flood. Yet, as I have already observed, when we might least expect it, the
scene suddenly changes, we are intioduced to the ostensibly postdiluvian
heroes of Thebes and Troy, and a reformation takes place without any
literally specified dissolution of the world. But, unless I am greatly mista
ken, such a dissolution, though not literally specified, is covertly alluded to in
this part of the fable : and the corruption of manners, which Hesiod ascribes
to his brazen age, really ushers in the catastrophe of the deluge. From
the preceding examination of his chronology it appears, that his three first
ages, though apparently and with a secondary reference placed after the flood,
are really and properly antediluvian. This being the case, the reformation
assigned to the era of Thebes and Troy must coincide in point of time with
the reformation of manners or the new golden age which succeeded the deluge.
The fabulous age therefore of Thebes and of Troy must be the age of the
deluge : or, at least, there must have been some sort of analogical resem
blance between the two ages, some common intermixture of tradition ; other
wise Hesiod would scarcely have placed the warriors of those two renowned
cities in the precise chronological epoch where Ovid places the flood.*
1 Hes. Oper. ct dicr. lib. i. ver. 126136.
1 In exact accordance with such an opinion, while Hesiod makes his brazen age terminate
with the fabulous epoch of the Trojan war, the scholiast on Homer tells us, that Jupiter
sent a flood te drstroy the men of the brazen age. The epoch therefore of the Trojan war
coincides with the epoch of the deluge. Schol.-in Horn. Iliad, lib. i. ver. 10.

This point is not unworthy of a full discussion : and the discussion will
shew, that the arrangement of Hesiod was neither arbitrary nor accidental.
(1.) The heroic age of Thebes and Troy must inevitably be understood,
as comprehending the age of the Argonauts : for Tydeus, the father of Dioinede, is said to have been at the siege of Thebes; Theseus, the first lover
of Helen, is described as contemporary with Eteocles and Polyuices, who
were conspicuous characters at the same siege ; Castor and Pollux, the bre
thren of Helen, are enumerated among the Argonauts ; and Helen herself,
it need scarcely be observed, was flourishing in complete beauty during the
iege of Troy. But Helen was born exactly at the same time with Castor
and Pollux. Therefore Helen, according to the preceding statement, must
have lived during both the Argonautic expedition, the siege of Thebes, and
the siege of Troy : and these three celebrated events stand so inseparably
linked together in the traditions of the ancients, that they must jointly be
deemed either historically true or mythologically false. It is utterly impossi
ble to dissever them from each other : if the one be fictitious, the rest must
be fictitious ; and, if the one be true, the rest must be true also. Thus, if
Diomede were really at the siege of Troy, there must have been a literal
siege of Thebes, because there his father Tydeus signalized himself : and, if
Helen were really carried off by Paris, there must have been a literal Argo
nautic expedition, because her brethren were two of the chosen manners of
the Argo. Thus again, on the other hand, if the Argonautic expedition be
a palpable mythologic fiction, it is plainly impossible, that the two sieves of
Thebts and Troy should be sober historical realities : because, if Castor and
Pollux and their adventurous companions in the Argo be mythologic charac
ters, Helen cannot be a real one ; and, if Helen be not a real one, Diomede
and the other Grecian chiefs who reclaimed her at the point of the sword
equally cannot be real characters ; and, if Diomede be a mythological cha
racter, genuine history can have no concern with his father Tydeus and the
heroes of the war of Thebes. In short, the events in question must, one and
all, be false ; or, one and all, be true. No middle way can be selected :
we must be content to admit them in the mass, or to reject them in the mass.
Now the whole Argonautic expedition bears upon the very face of it the
strong impress of mythologic fiction. The ship Argo, we are told, was the
CHAV- *,
2i
first ship that was ever built.
It was likewise, we are assured, no other than
the Baris or Theba or luniform ark of the Egyptian Osiris, within which he was
inclosed by Typhon or the ocean and thus set afloat on the sacred river Nile.
But, as Osiris is palpably the same as Noah, so his character likewise iden
tifies itself with that of the Indian Iswara or Siva. Hence the ship Argo of
theoue is certainly the ship Argha of the other. The Argha however is irrdisputably the Ark, because it is said to have sailed over the surface of the
deluge and to have been afterwards changed into a dove. Therefore the
Argo, as indeed necessarily follows from the character of Osiris, must also
be the Ark ; a conclusion, which exactly again corresponds with the notion
that it was the first-constructed vessel. Now, since the Argo or Argha was
confessedly the ship of Iswara and Osiris, and since its own legendary history
as connected with the legendary histories of those deities proves it to have
been the Ark of Noah ; it clearly follows, that the whole fable of Jason and
his companions must have been a mere Hellenic fiction, built upon the theolo
gical system, which in a considerable degree the Greeks received from
Egypt. For how could any literal Jason have sailed to Colchis in the sacred
first-built ship of Iswara and Osiris ? And how could the knowledge of a
petty voyage, performed by an obscure adventurer of a semibarbarous Hel
lenic state, have been diffused, as we have abundant testimony that it was
diffused, over the whole both of the east and the west. Nothing but the
genuine Argonautic expedition could have been thus universally celebrated :
and, when we recollect tnat the mythology of Greece was altogether derived
either from the Scythic Pelasgi or the Phenicians or the Egyptians, we may
rest assured, that the pretended voyage of Jason in the very shipef Osiris
is but a locally appropriated transcript of the mystic voyage of Osiris or
Iswara, and that Jason and Osiris and Iswara are all fundamentally one
and the same character.
Accordingly, the whole legend both of Jason and his ship affords the most
satisfactory internal evidence, that it is nothing more than the Hellenized
history of Osiris and the Argo or of Iswara and the Argha. Jason himself
is said to have been inclosed in an ark during his infancy like one that was
dead, in order that he might escape the fury of Pelias; just as Osiris and the
infant Horus were shut up either in an ark, or a floating island, in order

that they might escape the rage of Typhon.
25
In this situation, his imagined
death was loudly lamented in the night-time by the women of hisfamily;

just as the allegorical death of Adonis or Osiris (for they were the same
deity) was bewailed, during the celebration of the nocturnal mysteries,
by the women of Byblos and Egypt. At a subsequent period of his life, he
becomes the captain of the Argo, which was the identical ship of Osiris;
and which, in allusion to the introduction of the Argonautic Orgies from
Egypt into Greece, is also feigned to have been the vessel which conveyed
Danaus and his family from the former country to the latter : and, in the
course of his fabled voyage to Colchis, he on one occasion sends a dove out
of his ship, and on another receives a dove into it; just as Iswara and
Argha fly away in the form of doves at the close of the deluge, or rather as
Noah first sends out a dove and then receives it again into the Ark.
Lastly,
we find him and his companions on the coast of Africa carrying the Argo on
their shoulders ; precisely as the priests of Ammon or Osiris were wont to
bear in solemn procession the sacred ship of their oceanic deity. '
Thus accurately do these cognate legends correspond in every particular.
But, though the Greeks seem to have peculiarly borrowed their Argonautic
expedition from Egypt, there was not a nation on the face of the earth which
was not more or less acquainted with it. The utterly impossible voyage of
the Argo, if literally understood, serves only to shew, that in every region,
to which the not merely licentious imagination of the poets conducts it, a mys
terious ship and a wonderful mariner were devoutly reverenced. And with
this account of the voyage facts exactly agree.
The Argo visited the coast
of Africa, the western part of Asia, the Danube, the Po, the Baltic, and
the British isles : and, in all these parts of the world, a ship and a ship-cod
were equally venerated. But, if we admit a literal Argonautic expedition
from Thessaly to Colchis ; how can we account for the knowledge of this
little contemptible voyage being thus diffused over the face of the whole
globe? Its genuine prototype was assuredly the first voyage performed in
the first-built ship ; that ship, which was the work of the eight Cabiri, which
inclosed Osiris when pursued by the ocean, which bore Iswara in safety
1 See this matter discussed at large in my Dissert, on the Cabiri. chap. viii.
Pag. Idol.
vOL. II.
26
book m.
over the waters of the deluge, and which in the earliest ages was placed
among the constellations with the raven, the hieroglyphical sea-serpent, the
altar, and the sacrificing Centaur. 1
The Argo, in short, was the Ark : and
the Argonautic expedition, which the Greeks ascribed to a band of Thessalian adventurers, but which was celebrated in every region of the earth, had
no real existence, save as the voyage of Noah and his family.
If then the Argonautic expedition was a mere mythological fiction, built
altogether on the history of the flood ; it must follow, from the preceding
* The very position of these remarkable catasterisms may serve to prove, that the history
of the Argo could not have been written on the sphere by the Greeks : whence it will follow,
that the fable of the Argonautic expedition was no further a Greek fable than as it was
adapted to the neighbourhood of Thessaly.
Canopus, the principal star in the constellation Argo, is only 37 degrees from the south
pole, and the greatest part of the constellation lies still nearer to it. But the pretended
course of the Argoan voyage lay between 39 and 45 degrees of north latitude. Consequently,
if the sphere had either been constructed by or for the fictitious Argonauts of Hellas,
the framer would not have given the name of the ship Argo to a constellation, alike
invisible, at Pagaste whence they are fabled to have set out, and at Colchis whither they
were bound. The Argo must assuredly have been placed in the sphere by a nation, which
dwelt far to the south of Greece, and to which the constellation itself was visible. But the
Argo could not have been placed in the sphere, previou* to the existence of its own history.
Hence it will follow, that the history of the Argo must have been well known to that southern
nation, anterior to its localized adoption by the Greeks. In other words, the Argonautic
expedition, as detailed by the Greeks, could never have really taken place: but the whole
story of it was borrowed from the southern nation, which first placed the ship in the sphere;
and it was only so far altered as to wear the aspect of a national Hellenic talc.
As for the people that originally invented the sphere, I have no doubt that they were the
Cuthim of Babylonia : and precisely the same argument, which proves the origination of the
various mythologic systems of Paganism from the common centre of Chaldea, will equally
prove the origination of the sphere from the same region. To omit other coincidences, the
twelve signs of the zodiac perfectly agree both in appellation and in order of succession, whe
ther delineated on the sphere of Hindostan or of ancient Egypt or of Greece. But this they
could not have done, unless the several spheres of those nations had all been framed by one
and the same people. Such then being the case, we can scarcely hesitate to pronounce, that
that people were the architects of Babel, and that the sphere thus alike carried off by the
founders of different nations was itself invented before the dispersion.
This hypothesis seems to be confirmed by strong internal evidence. As the constellation
Argo is plainly the Argha or Ark, and as the neighbouring constellations all relate to the
history of the deluge : so what we now call Orion and bis dogs are apparently the great
27
train of reasoning, that the wars of Thebes and Troy cannot be admitted as
portions of authentic history : for all the three, as it has already been shewn,
are so inseparably linked together, that they must stand or fall conjointly ;
if one be a literal matter of fact, all must be literal matters of fact ; if one
be purely fabulous, all must be purely fabulous.
But the age of the Argo-
nautic expedition is the age of the deluge. Therefore the ages of Thebes and
of Troy, as they are exhibited to us in poetry, must also be the age of the
deluge; whether we choose, or choose not, to suppose the existence of
some piratical squabble, which may probably enough have taken place be
tween the Greeks and the Iliensians. Accordingly, the whole history both
of Thebes and of Troy is diluvian : and I am inclined to believe, that the
fabled wars of each city are, at least in the first instance, much the same in
import as the allegorical wars of Typhon and the Titans.
The name of the Beotian Thebes was confessedly borrowed from that of
the Egyptian Thebes ; and the legendary account of its foundation is built
entirely upon the worship of the sacred heifer. Cadmus, whom tradition
brings out of Egypt no less than out of Phenicia, and who (as we shall here
after see) was the same person as Thoth or Hermes or Buddha, is said to
have been conducted to the place destined for his future city by a cow,
which had the figure of the lunar crescent imprinted on its side. Now this
precisely answers to the description of the bull Apis, which was marked by
a similar lateral stigma : and, as I have already shewn, the bull and the
cow were worshipped conjointly as the symbols of the great father and the
great mother.
Accordingly we are told, that the heifer of Cadmus was
hunter Nimrod and his hounds ; while the bears, the lions, the linx, and the hare, represent
the game which he pursued. Cedrenus accordingly scruples not to pronounce Orion and
Nimrod the same person. Hist. Compend. p. 14. I may add, that the Virgo of our present
sphere is certainly the navicular great mother, who was sometimes mystically deemed a virgin.
For the Egyptians called her Isit, who was confessedly the same as Ceres : and the Hindoos
delineate her, as a woman standing in a boat and holding in her two hands a lamp and an
ear of corn. This last mode of delineation was, I am persuaded, the original one : but,
though the Greeks lost the concomitants of the female figure, they accurately preserved the
mythological notions to which they refer. Their Ceres or Isis was a ship-goddess: she was
said to have borne a lamp during her nocturnal search for Proserpine, whence lamps were
introduced into the celebration of her Mysteries: and she was described, as being peculiarly
the goddess of corn.
CHA'. *,
28
book hi.
denominated Theba ; which, in consequence of the hieroglyphical application

of that animal, denoted in the dialect of Syria and Egypt both a caw and
an ark: and we are likewise informed, that the Thebes both of Greece and
of the upper Egypt received its name from the Theba or that mystic arkite
cow, within which Osiris was once inclosed and set afloat on the Nile. 1
Such was the fabled origin of the Beotian city : and that of Troy or Ilium
precisely resembled it. Ilus, the reputed founder of the latter, was directed
by an oracle to follow the guidance of a cow, and, wheresoever the animal
should lie down, there to build his projected city. *
The two stories are so perfectly the same, that we cannot doubt of their
having arisen from a common mythological source. Hence the one must be
interpreted by the other : and, if the Theban legend have respect to the
prevailing diluvian superstition, such also must be the case with the Trojan
legend. In fact, the very same mode of worship was established in Asia
Minor and in Greece: and this again identifies itself with the peculiar
idolatry both of Egypt and die whole east, or rather indeed of the whole
woild. Ilus was no less a Phenician, than a Trojan, hero-god : and he is
represented by Sanchoniatho, as being the same as Cronus or the great
father, with whose golden age every successive world invariably commenced.
The Ilus of Troas and Phenicia is the masculine Ila of Hindostan, who is
the same as Buddha or Menu : and the feminine Ila of that country is
described as being the wife and daughter of the ancient patriarch, who was
preserved in a ship with seven companions when the earth was inundated by
an universal deluge. She likewise bore the cognate name of Ida ; and the
summit of the Paradisiaco-diluvian Meru was from her denominated Ilavratta or Ida-vratta.
It was from these two primeval characters, the mas-
culine and feminine Ila or Ida, that both the city of Ilium and the sacred
hill of Ida received their appellations. Ida was the Meru of the Troas :
and, as Theba and the female Ila were the same mythological character,
Thebes and Ilium, agreeably to the common legend of their foundation,
were only designated by two different names of one great mother.
' Ovid. Metam. lib. iii. ver. 123. Tzetz. in Lycoph. ver. 1206.
Etym. Magn. vox
* Apollod. Bibl. lib. iii. c. 11. Lycoph. Cassan. ver. 29- Tzetz. Schol. in loc.
the origin; ok pagan idolatry.

In exact accordance with such fictions, which the.Thehans, the Iliensians, CHArthe Phenicians, the Egyptians, and the Hindoos, have severally by local
appropriation made their own, the old history of the Trojans, which is so
genealogically connected with the war of Troy that they must be accepted
or rejected together, finally and literally, like the fabulous early history of
all other ancient nations, resolves itself into the deluge.
Thus Dardanus, one of their first pretended kings, was believed to have
previously been a king of Arcadia, and to have escaped from a flood which
inundated his dominions. Driven from Arcadia, he took refuge in Samothrace, the peculiar country of the Cabiri ; who were esteemed the builders
of the first ship, and who were reported to have consecrated to Neptune
the relics of the ocean or deluge : 1 and from Samothrace he removed to
Troy, having, according to some, escaped another flood, which laid that
sacred island under water, and which is declared to have been the very same
as that of Deucalion.1 His latter escape is evidently a mere reduplication
of the former : each is equally a local fable, the one Arcadian, the other
Samothracian, built on the history of the general deluge. Thus also Tennes,
another of the fictitious princes of Troy, was said to have been set afloat in
an ark on the surface of the ocean, and to have afterwards safely landed on
the island of Tenedos. 1 Now this is nothing more than an exact counterpart
of the legend of Dionusus or Bacchus, who was specially venerated by the
Thebans, and whose Mysteries were thought to have been brought by Cad
mus out of Egypt. While the god was yet an infant, he was inclosed in an
ark and cast into the sea; but, like Tennes, he drifted to land without re
ceiving any injury from his perilous exposure.
All such parallel tales, which occur perpetually in the mythology of the
ancients and which have thence been adopted into modern romance both
ecclesiastic and heroic,* are nothing more than local appropriations of a
general history; which equally concerns all mankind, because it is the his1 Dion. Halic. Ant. Rom. lib. i. c. Gl. Euseb. Praep. Evan. lib. i. c. 10.
1 Tzetz. in Lycoph. ver. 29, 69.
3 Conon. Narrat. xxix.
4 Tbe holy Cuthbert and the redoubtable Amadis were equally set afloat in an ark. Vide
infra book v# c. 8. I. 1. II. 7.
30
boos in.
THE ORIGIN OF PAGAW IDOLATRY-.
tory of the primitive ancestors of every nation upon the face of the earth.
Agreeably to this hypothesis, Hesiod, we find, places the deceased heroes of
Thebes and of Troy in the sacred isles of the blessed, which he describes as
being washed by the waves of the great western ocean. But those isles, as
we have already seen, were the fabled Elysium of the poets : and they
doubly symbolized Paradise and the Ark. Hence there was a notion, that,
somehow or other, they were the same as the Egyptian Thebes : by which
nothing more was meant, than that each of them shadowed out a Theba or
Ila-vratta. By the Hindoos they are considered as the residence of the Pitris or patriarchal forefathers of mankind, who dwelt in Paradise and who were
preserved from the deluge. Hence it was not without reason, that Hesiod
makes them the abode of those Theban and Trojan worthies ; whose age
was the age of the Argonautic expedition, whose history stands in insepara
ble connection with legends of the deluge, and who are placed in a period
of reformation immediately successive to a period of universal corruption
that followed the two ages of silver and of gold.
In short, if Homer's poem has been founded on any predatory war which
took place between the Hellenes and the Iliensians, a circumstance not impro
bable ; he has certainly embellished it by an immediate connection with the
hero-gods of the old diluvian theology. Such a mode of treating a subject is
by no means without parallel ; and indeed was almost the necessary conse
quence of that humour, which bestowed upon men the titles of the gods,
and which considered the initiated as scenically exhibiting in their own per
sons all the allegorical sufferings of the deified patriarchs. Thus the actions
of the ancient mythological Arthur, who was saved in a ship with seven
companions at the time of an universal inundation, have been blended with
the history of the British prince who at a long subsequent period was decor
ated or disguised by that pagan title : and thus the arkite demi-gods of Cel
tic theology, and the mystic circle of Ida or Ceridwen, have been con
verted into the romantic heroes of chivalry and the far-famed military bro
therhood of the round table.1
1 It docs not appear to mc, that Mr. Bryant's leading idea on this subject has erer been
really confuted. Though it is only agreeable to the character of the times, that there may
have been a marauding war between the warlike pirates of the two opposite coasts of Europ*
31
('.) On the whole, the four first ages of Hesiod, with the remarkable subsequent addition of his fifth age, may be considered as exhibiting a very cu
rious instance of the doctrine of a succession of similar worlds compre
hending similar cycles : for they shew an attempt to blend together into one
narrative the antediluvian and the postdiluvian series of ages.
He deduces his whole theogony from Chaos, which he makes the begin
ning of the World : but his Cronus or great father, as every part of that
god's history demonstrates, is at least as much a transcript of Noah as of
Adam ; and his chaotic ocean, which appears as the common parent of the
hero-gods, cannot be more deemed the Chaos out of which the World was
originally formed, than the deluge out of which it emerged at the time of
what was esteemed its new formation.
His three first ages are characteris
tically antediluvian : yet he brings them down to a fourth heroic age of the
Theban and Trojan wars, at which time he places a moral reformation, that,
we know, only occurred immediately after the flood : and then, when we
seem to be fairly in a postdiluvian period, we find ourselves, through its in
separable connection with the ship Argo or Argha, to be suddenly transported
back to the identical awful catastrophe which Ovid rightly places at the termi
nation of his iron age. Lastly, as if the poet were thoroughly bewildered
with his own arrangement and yet conscious that he himself was living in
any thing rather than a golden age, he proceeds to lament that he had been
thrown into a fifth age which might well deserve the name of an iron one :
and Asia, and though some such war may have been adopted by Homer as the basis of his
poem; it is impossible to admit, that the Iliad is as nearly allied to authentic history as the
Jerusalem of Tasso or even as the Orlando of Ariosto. The actors in perhaps a literal war,
as exhibited in the great poem of the Hellenic bard, can scarcely be received as literal charac
ters themselves, when we view their immediate connection with the Argo, with the deluge, and
with the gods of Egypt and I'henicia and Hindustan. I cannot but think it very inconclusive
reasoning, though it has been hailed with loud applause, to argue the actual existence of Ho
mer's heroes, under the circumstances which he attributes to them, from the accuracy of his
local descriptions, even if that accuracy had not been considerably exaggerated. By a simi
lar process I will undertake to demonstrate the exploits of Brute, Corineus, and other British
worthies, to be manifest historical verities. The local accuracy of a poet may prove, that he
had vrsited the country where he lays his plot and that he had availed himself of the established
popular legends ; but I see not what it can prove more.
CHAp-
32
but at the same time he uses language, which necessarily involves the doc
trine ; that each series of ages was always followed by another similar series,
and that, when the iron age had arrived, it would be speedily followed by a
better age of gold.1
V. The remote antiquity and very general reception of the fable of the
four ages, also the application of it as a cycle ending in a reform of manners,
may, I think, be collected from Scripture itself.
In Nebuchadnezzar's vision of the great image, the head of gold, the
breast and the arms of silver, the belly and the thighs of brass, and the
legs of iron, exhibit the four successive ages of four sovereignties : and,
when at length those four ages have fully expired, and when the four sove
reignties have been swept away from off the face of the earth ; a new age
and a new kingdom of pure and holy manners, the age and the kingdom of
Messiah and his saints, are described as commencing.
It is worthy of observation, that in this symbolical prophecy, though the
legs of the image are of pure iron, his feet are of iron mixed with earthy
clay.
Such a mode of painting, though it admirably represents what has
really happened, is yet in strict correspondence with ideas, which must have
been perfectly familiar to the pagan king of Babylon. The last age, though
usually known as the age of iron, is denominated by the Hindoos the age of
earth? Into the vision each hieroglyphic is curiously introduced : and, by
the combined use of the two, such a modification of the iron age is ex
hibited as best shadowed out the realities of futurity.
Even the peculiar symbol of the great statue itself has been adopted with
the strictest regard to congruity. It is nearly allied to the gigantic image,
which the king caused to be erected in the plain of Dura. This image was
one of those stupendous statues of Menu or Buddha or Jain, which the
toiling devotion of ancient Paganism delighted to set up. Many, particu
larly in the east, are still in existence : and the personage, whom they re He expresses a wish, that he had either died before or lived after the iron age, in which he
had the ill luck to be placed. But, if his lot would have been mended by living after it, then
of course he must have expected that his iron age would usher in a renovated golden age.
Opcr.et dicr. lib. i. ver. 172174.
* Asiat. Res. vol. i, p. 236.
33
presented, was he ; who reigned indeed through all the four ages, but who
visibly manifested himself only in that of gold.1 Thus exact is the hiero
glyphic in all its parts.
1 As a king was esteemed the immediate representative of the universal sovereign Menu,
who reigns either visibly or invisibly through all the four ages, he is described in the Institutes
of Menu as being inseparably connected with them. All the ages, called Satya, Treta,
Dwapara, and Kali, depend on the conduct of the king ; who u declared in turn to represent
each of thosefour ages. Sleeping, he is the Kali age ; waking, he is the Dwapara ; exerting
himself in action, the Treta; living virtuously, the Satya. Instit. of Menu. chap. ix. p. 284.
In a similar manner, Nebuchadnezzar's great image extends or reigns through all the four ages,
and js himself represented by them conjointly.
Pag. Idol.
VOL. II.
CHAPTER
II.
Miscellaneous pagan traditions relative to the period between the

creation and the deluge.
The G entiles have preserved various traditions relative to the period be

tween the creation and the deluge, which from their miscellaneous
nature will best be noticed conjointly under a single division of my sub
ject.
I. I have frequently had occasion to observe, that, according to the theory
of a succession of similar worlds, the great father and his three sons con
stantly reappear by transmigration at the commencement of every new mun
dane system : whence Noah and his triple offspring were considered only as
a revival of Adam and his triple offspring; while the latter were deemed no
thing more, than one of the numerous manifestations of the self-triplicating
great father.
Thus Brahma, Vjshnou, and Siva, the three sons of the Indian Brahm,
are proved to be the three sons of Noah, both by a large part of their his
tory which is clearly diluvian, and by the very names which they bear in ad
dition to their ordinary titles : for Vishnou is called Sama or Shem ; Siva,
Ham and Cama which correspond with the scriptural Ham and Cham ; and
Brahma, Pra-Japati or the lord Japhet. Yet are they also declared to be
the sons of the first Menu, who is denominated Swayambhuva ; and not only
35
his sons, but likewise, still under the very names of Sama, Cama, and
Pra-Japati, the sons of every transmigrating Menu without exception.1 Now
the first Menu is declared to have been the son of the Self-existent, whence
he bore the title of Swayambhuva. He was called moreover Adima ; while
the consort, assigned to him, was known by the appellation of Iva.1 It is
plain therefore, that he is the scriptural Adam. Consequently, his three
sons, the Sama, Cama, and Pra-Japati, of his peculiar world, are Seth,
Cain, and Abel.
Such a conclusion is firmly established by a curious legend, which I have
already had occasion to notice at large. With respect to this legend, we are
told in one fable, that the first Menu had three daughters and two sons, who
were particularly distinguished. What became of the third son, or in what
manner his brethren were distinguished, it does not inform us, except that
the Deity descended from heaven to be present at a sacrifice which they of
fered up.' But the deficiency in both respects is amply supplied by other
fables. From them we learn, that, Brahma becoming incarnate, the first
woman Satarupa or Iva sprang out of one half of his body, and the first
man Adima or Menu-Swayambhuva out of the other half. This pair had
three sons : Dacsha, or Brahma in a human shape ; Siva, under the appella
tion of Cardama or Capita or Cabil, which last is the Mohammedan name
of Cain ; and Vishnou, under the title of Ruchi. Of these, Cardama or
Cardam-Eswara, the destructive power united to a form of clay, finding
his brother Brahma in the mortal character of Dacsha, slew him as
he was performing a sacrifice, and thus reduced the number of the sons of
Adima to two agreeably to the specification of the former fable. Dacsha,
it is added, had previously reviled his antagonist, wishing that he might al
ways remain a vagabond on the face of the earth.4 Thus, in one point of
view, Adima had three sons ; and, in another, only two. Now, in exact
accordance with these varying numbers, the traditionary history of the Puranas is constructed.
It is asserted in them, that from Cardama, Dacsha,
Asiat. Res. vol. viii. p. 254,255.

* Asiat. Res. vol. ii. p. 116. vol. viii. p. 254. vol. v. p. 250, 252.
3 Asiat. Res. vol. ii. p. 116.
* Asiat. Res. vol. vi. p. 472477-
36
and Ruchi, the earth was filled with inhabitants : yet in the same Puranas
we are told, that Brahma, being disappointed, found it necessary to give two
sons to Adima, from whom at last the earth was filled with inhabitantsThese two sons were Priyavrata and Uttanapada ; who, as Mr. Wilford
justly remarks, appear to be the same with Cardama and Ruchi or Cain
and Seth. 1 In short, what sufficiently shews the true character of the famous
Hindoo triad which is manifested as the triple offspring of the great father at
the commencement of every world, it is fairly acknowledged by the Brahmenical theologists, that the three sons of Menu-Swayambhuva are incarnations
of the Trimurti ; and it is generally declared in the Puranas, that they
were created by the Deity to marry the three daughters of the first man,
with a view to avoid the defilement of human conception, gestation, and
birth.1
The classical Cronus or Saturn, considered as flourishing during the real
golden age, when men were exempt from sin and disease and death, when
they innocently appeared in a state of nudity, and when they conversed with
the brute creation, is evidently the first Menu or Adima of the Hindoos ;
while he is no less evidently their Menu-Satyavrata, if considered in his diluvian character. Hence, as Swayambhuva is denominated Adima ; so we
learn from Stephanus of Byzantium, that one of the eastern names of Cronus
was Adan.1
II. The preceding Hindoo legend may serve to explain a tradition respect
ing the Cabiri.
These are sometimes described, as being eight in number, in allusion to
the whole family of the great father ; sometimes, when the most ancient Cabiric gods are spoken of, as only two, a male and a female, who are the
great father and the great mother; and sometimes as three brethren, in re' Asiat. Res. vol. v. p. 249, 250.
1 Asiat. Res. vol. viii. p. 254.
1 Stepb. de urb. Vox ASava. It is rather a curious anecdote, that fcochart, in a con
ference with Gale, allowed the propriety of referring the character of Cronus to Adam ; but
owned, that he had purposely omitted the stories which induced such an opinion, because
they contradicted his system which would make Cronus to be exclusively Noah. Had Bochart possessed that key to pagan mythology, the doctrine of a succession of similar worlds,
he would have perceived, that this management was no less unnecessary than disingenuous.

ference to the triple offspring of the great parents.
37
Their history proves
them to have chiefly been the arkite hero-deities : but, since the doctrine
of a succession of similar worlds was the very basis of pagan theology, we
are not to imagine that they were exclusively diluvian gods. The three Cabiric brethren were the same as the Trimurti or triplicated great god of the
Hindoos : they represent indeed the three sons of Noah ; but they do not, on
that account, the less represent also the three sons of Adam. Accordingly,
as one of the persons of the Trimurti, when incarnate in the triple offspring
of Swayambhuva or Adima, is said to have been slain by his brother at the
time of a solemn sacrifice: so, with a slight variation, one of the three Ca.
biri is represented as having been murdered by his two brethren. It is
added in the legend, that after his death he was, by the fratricides, conse
crated as a god at the foot of mount Olympus ; that, stained as he had been
with blood, the Thessalians worshipped him with bloody hands ; and that
the slaughter of a brother by his brothers was esteemed a sacred mystery in
the Orgies of the Corybantes.1 These particulars confirm the supposition,
that the fable originated from the death of Abel. The Mysteries of the an
cients were a scenic exhibition of the events of Paradise and the deluge :
the early transactions of two worlds were blended together into one
drama, agreeably to the doctrine of a perpetual succession of similar mun
dane systems : and mount Olympus, where the slaughtered Cabirus is feigned
to have been consecrated, was, as I have already shewn, one of the many
local transcripts of Meru or Ilapus; that is to say, of the Paradisiacodiluvian mount Ararat.
It is not improbable, that, on the same principle of double allusion, the
murder of Osiris by his brother Typhon, and the detrusion of Pluto into
Hades by his brother Jupiter, may each, though severally adapted to the
history of the deluge, have an ultimate reference to the slaughter of
Abel.
III. We may observe a similar fable in the early mythological history of
the Atlantians.
Hyperion, one of the sons of their reputed first king Uranus, is said to
' Jul. Firm, de error, prof. rel. p. 23, f t.
Cohort, p. 12'.
Arnob. adv. gent. lib. v. p. 169. Clem. Alex.
CHXP- u-
38
book in. have Deen murdered by his brethren : but the legend, as is usually the case,
is mingled with diluvianism; for Hyperion is described as being the father
of the Sun and the Moon, and his child the Sun is feigned to have been
plunged by the Titans into the sacred river Eridanus. 1
This last circum
stance is the same as the consignment of Osiris to the Nile; for the Nile
and the Eridanus and the Ganges were equally deemed holy streams, were
equally symbolical of the deluge, and were equally represented as bearing on
their waves the Argo or Argha or ship of the great father. Osiris, like the
offspring of Hyperion, was astronomically the Sun; but in reality he was a
mere human character: and the many incongruous tales of the Sun being
plunged in a lake or a river, being set afloat in a ship on the surface of the
ocean, or being compelled to take refuge from the fury of the ocean in a
wonderful floating island, have all arisen from applying the literal history of
a man to his sidereal representative. Thus, in the present instance, the two
children of Hyperion, though styled Helius and Selend, are first represented
as being nothing more than mortals : but, after their death, they are said to
have been received among the gods and to have been identified with the Sun
and Moon. The actions and sufferings therefore, ascribed to the two hea
venly bodies, were in fact only actions and sufferings, which had once been
performed and undergone upon earth.
IV. It is a remarkable circumstance, if we may venture to give credit to
it, that the Iroquois, a savage nation of America, should have ac
curately preserved a tradition of the primeval history now under considera
tion,
i
They are said to believe, that the first woman was seduced from her obe
dience to God ; and that, in consequence of it, she was banished from heaven.
She afterwards bore twosons. One of these, having armed himself with an
offensive weapon, attacked and slew the other, who was unable to resist his
superior force. More children afterwards sprang from the same woman, who
were the ancestors of all mankind. *
V. In the legendary history of the Atlantians, Uranus is fabled to have
had many sons : but three only are mentioned by name, Atlas, Cronus, and
* Diod. Bibl. lib. iii. p. 191, 192.
* Moeurs des sauvages. torn. i. p. 43.
THE ORICIN OF PAGAN IDOLATRY.
SQ
Hyperion; who, as we have just seen, was thought to have been murdered
by his brethren. These three, standing in this connection, are evidently those
three sons of Adam, of whom alone the names have been handed down to
us ; and the murder of Hyperion is the murder of the righteous Abel.
Such an opinion will receive additional strength, as we advance further iu

die history ; mixed as it doubtless is, according to the established system of
theologizing, with clear references to the deluge.
After the death of Hype
rion, his brethren divided among them the kingdom of their father Uranus.
Of these Atlas and Cronus were the most renowned ; and to the lot of the
former fell those western regions, which border upon the ocean. Atlas was
a learned astronomer, and communicated his name to a celebrated mountain
within his dominions, the top of which he employed as an observatory. Like
his father Uranus, he also had a numerous family: but, among them, his son
Hesperus was by far the most eminent in piety towards the gods and in jus
tice and philanthropy towards his subjects.
Hesperus addicted himself to
the same philosophical pursuits as his parent : and, having one day ascended
the summit of Atlas to make his wonted observations on the stars, he was
suddenly carried away by a violent whirlwind and never more appeared in the
haunts of men. The people, venerating his memory on account of his ex
traordinary virtue, enrolled him among the immortals, and worshipped the
new deity in the beautiful star of evening. 1
It is almost superfluous to observe, that we have here commemorated, as
the next remarkable event after the murder of Abel, the miraculous transla
tion of Enoch : and, that the two Atlantian legends are to be thus understood,
will incontestably appear, when we find, as I shall presently have occasion
to shew, that the whole series of events, of which they form a part, is une
quivocally placed before the submersion of the old world.
VI. Precisely the same circumstance occurs in the antediluvian history of
the Hindoos; and it occurs also in the very same connection.
A son of Adima and Iva kills his brother at a sacrifice: and, after the
death of that holy personage, the earth is peopled by the descendants of the
two surviving brethren.
One of these has a son named Dhruva ; who, in

1 Diod. Bibl. lib. iii. p. 193, 191.
cHAP. n.
40
THK ORIGIN OF PAGAN IDOLATRY.
' consequence of the unjust partiality which his father shews to his cider brother
Uttama, retires into a forest on the banks of the Jumna.
Here he gives
himself up to the contemplation of the Supreme Being and to the performance

of religious austerities. His extraordinary piety gains the favour of God :
and, after delivering many salutary precepts to mankind, he is translated to
heaven without tasting death ; where he still shines conspicuous in the polar
star.1
The close resemblance between these two legends of the Atlantians and
the Hindoos proves them to have originated from a common source ; and that
source can only have been the ancient patriarchal history of Enoch, with
which the family of Noah must have been well acquainted long before the
composition of the Pentateuch.
VII. The character of the Atlantian astronomer Hesperus melts into that
of his philosophical father Atlas : and Enoch, thus exhibited, is manifestly
the Edris of the east and the Idris of the Celtic Britons.
Edris is declared by the oriental writers to be the same person as Enoch ;
who, like the Atlantian Hesperus, is described as being a skilful astronomer
and as making his observations on the summit of a lofty hill : and Idris,
according to the old legends of the Druids, was also an eminent astronomer,
who pursued his favourite studies on the top of a high peak which from him
still bears the appellation of Cader Idris or the chair of Idris. This last
personage was thought, like Atlas, to have been of a gigantic stature : and
the general coincidence between the two fables is such, that we can scarcely
doubt Cader Idris to have been viewed by the Celts in exactly the same light
as Mount Atlas was by the Africans. 1
But the astronomer Hesperus is
proved by his history to be Enoch ; and the oriental astronomer Edris is

acknowledged to be the same patriarch. We may therefore safely conclude,
that he is also shadowed out under the character of the British astronomer
Idris.
I. At this point, the righteous Enoch will be found, in the legends of the
Gentiles, to melt insensibly into a more recent preacher of repentance, the
patriarch Noah.
Asiat. Res. vol. v. p. 252.
* Davies's Celtic Research, p. 173, 174.
41
Such a circumstance, the reality of which seems to me indisputable, per

fectly harmonizes with the notion, that the great father is not only manifested
at the commencement of every new world, but that he repeatedly appears
by transmigration in the person of each eminent reformer during the conti
nuance of his own proper mundane system. Thus, of the seven primeval
Menus, we are told, that the first was Menu-Swayambhuva or Adam ; and
the last, Menu-Satyavrata or Noah, for he is described as having been pre
served in an ark during the prevalence of an universal deluge. Between
Adam therefore and Noah, the Hindoos place five Menus, or five supposed
manifestations of the great father in the persons of five principal antediluvian
saints.
It were an idle waste of time to attempt to ascertain what precise five
patriarchs they mean by these five intermediate Menus; because I am per
suaded, that the arbitrary number seven, which equally occurs in the next
series of Menus, has been borrowed from the seven members of each of the
two great primeval families : but, when we recollect the holy character of the
scriptural Enoch, and when we find that the memory of his righteousness
and consequent translation has been accurately preserved at the two opposite
extremities of Asia and Africa, we can scarcely doubt that he at least would
be esteemed one of the five antediluvian appearances of Menu. Enoch
therefore and Noah were each viewed as a manifestation of the great father :
the one, to give timely warning to the world ; the other, to preside over its
destruction and renovation.
The two patriarchs being thus mystically identified, it is natural to con
clude that their two characters will be so intimately blended together as
nearly to be amalgamated : and this, accordingly, we shall find to have been
the case : the history of Noah is perpetually decorated with the most remark
able event in that of Enoch; and Enoch, while we gaze upon him as exhi
bited by the Gentiles, assumes imperceptibly the aspect of his successor
Noah.
2. Mount Atlas and Cader Idris were each a transcript of Meru or the
Paradisiaco-diluvian Ararat : and Noah was supposed to be as much addicted
to the study of astronomy as his ancestor Enoch. From this intercommunion
of character, the early Christians believed Edris or Enoch to be the same as
Pag. Idol.
vol. ii.
42
Thoth or Hermes. 1 Nor were they far mistaken in their opinion : for Thoth
is certainly the eastern Buddha; and Buddha or Menu, in his different suc
cessive manifestations, is at once Adam and Enoch and Noah. Idris
therefore and Hesperus, on the summits of Cader Idris and Atlas, are in
deed Enoch ; but they are likewise Noah and Adam, each on the top of the
primeval Ararat.
3. The identity of Thoth and Buddha cannot be doubted : and, when
their history is inquired into, it can be as little doubted, that they are
severally the great father, who is primarily Adam and secondarily Noah.
But the character of these deities runs into that of Idris or Edris : and, as
they appear no less than he to be the patriarch Enoch, so he no less than they
will prove also to be the great father who was manifested at the commencement
of both worlds.
In allusion to the triple offspring of Adam and Noah, the oriental Buddha
was believed to have triplicated himself, and is pronounced to be the same as
the triad springing from unity.
Much the same idea seems to have been en
tertained of Thoth or Hermes, as we may collect from the title of Thrice-great

est which was bestowed upon him : for, as his identity with Buddha may be
distinctly proved from other considerations, and as Buddha was esteemed a
triple deity, the descriptive title of Thoth must obviously be understood as
relating to his supposed triplication.
Now we may trace the existence of a similar opinion respecting Idris.
At the foot of the British mountain which still bears his name, there is a lake;
once, like other lakes in the same country, deemed sacred.
In the Myste
ries, a lake was a constant symbol of the deluge : a small island reposing
on its bosom, frequently an artificial floating island, represented the Ark :
and any lofty hill in its immediate vicinity shadowed out mount Ararat.
each of
typified
Ararat,
the four
But
these had a further reference to yet earlier times : and, while the hill
the hill of Paradise which coincided indeed geographically with
the lake was a copy of that lake of the hero-gods from which issued
rivers of Paradise, and the island denoted the literal greater World
w hich like the smaller arkite World was supposed to float after the manner of
1 Stanly's Hist, of Chald. Philosoph. p. 36.

a huge ship on the surface of the abyss.
4?)
The peak then of Idris was atran-
script of the Paradisiaco-diluvian mountain ; and, with the neighbouring lake,

was devoted in old times to the celebration of the Druidical Orgies, which were
precisely the same as those of the Samothracian Cabiri and the Egyptian Isis.
By the side of this lake, there are yet shewn three gigantic stones, called
Tri Greienyn. The popular notion is, that these were three grains of sand,
which the vast giant Idris shook carelessly out of his shoe before he ascended
the chair of his mountain observatory : but Mr. Davies justly supposes,
that they derived their name from Greian which signifies the Sun, whence
the Apollo Gryneus of the Greeks. They were, I believe, three ambrosial or
solar stones, of a similar description to those by which Buddha or Thoth or
Hermes was represented in every quarter of the globe: and they were dedi
cated to the triple great father or to the three aboriginal patriarchs, each of
whom, in inseparable conjunction with their common parent, was elevated
to the solar orb. Thus the Hindoos tell us, that Brahma, Vishnou, and
Siva, are the Sun in his three different altitudes ; and that their father, the
yet higher god Brahm, is the same : while we are additionally assured, that
Om or the Trimurti mysteriously unite together in the person of Buddha. 1
In this opinion respecting the three stones of Idris I am the more confirmed
by the existence of other points of resemblance between him and the herogods with whom I believe he ought to be identified. His supposed gigantic
stature exactly corresponds with the similar gigantic stature, which is ascribed
to Buddha, Jain, Mahiman, and Atlas; and which probably came to be
thus ascribed, from the custom of representing the great father by enormous
stone images : while his reputed astronomical knowledge is the very know
ledge, which Thoth, Buddha, Atlas, Edris, and Hesperus, were each be
lieved to possess in a peculiarly eminent degree. The mountain also of
Idris corresponds with the African mountain of Atlas and Hesperus, and
with the no less famed Ceylonic mountain of Buddha or Gautamah. When
used for religious purposes, it was, I have little doubt, a lunar or Para
disiacal mountain ; and, when employed by the Druids for astronomical
observations, it was so employed by them as the legitimate successors and
1 Asiat. Res. vol. iii. p. 144. vol. v, p. 254. vol. i. p. 284i 285, 286. Celtic Research,
p. 173, 174.
CHAP-
44
', representatives of the great father, w ho was ever deemed a highly scientific
character. Its mixed application to religion and astronomy, which two
were from the first inseparably blended together in the mythological system
of the pagans, perfectly agrees .with the similar application of the artificial
montiform temples of the ancients, and thus again connects Idris w ith the
Egyptian Thoth. The tower of Babel, the pyramids of Egypt, and the
pagodas of Hindostan, were all built to imitate and commemorate the
mountain, where Paradise once flourished and where the Ark afterwards
rested ; for the Brahmens rightly and explicitly tell us, that every edifice of
that form is to be esteemed a copy of mount Meru : and there is reason to
believe, that they have all been equally used as observatories.1 It w as the
early study of astronomy, that depicted on the sphere the history of the ship
Argo and the deluge, that elevated the great father and his sons to the solar
orb, and that adopted the boat-like crescent of the Moon as the most apt
symbol of the Ark. The scientific Idris on the top of his favourite moun
tain is no other, than the scientific Thoth on the summit of the imitative
pyramid ; w hile Thoth again is the same as Atlas or Hesperus on the top of
the natural observatory of Mauritania. In fact, I see no reason why we
should dispute the universal tradition, which ascribes both to Enoch and to
Noah an intimate acquaintance with astronomy. The long lives of the ante
diluvians almost precluded the possibility of ignorance : and we know, that,
at no very remote period after the flood, that science was cultivated with
assiduity and success both in Babylonia and in Egypt.
4. Idris therefore, or Edris, or Enoch, being esteemed one of the mani
festations of Menu, melts insensibly into the character both of Adam and
of Noah : and, on the other hand, for a similar reason, we find the memo
rable translation of the antediluvian saint, ascribed to that ancient personage
w ho was supposed to appear at the commencement of every renovated world.
From the summit of the lofty hill in Ceylon, which bears the name of Adams
peak, Buddha is said by his votaries to have been miraculously snatched
away to heaven : yet one Buddha is most assuredly Noah or Menu-Satyavrata;
and another, his earliest predecessor, is no less assuredly Adam or Menu' Vide infra book v. c. 7. J II. 1.
THE ORIGIN OF PAGAtf IDOLATRY.

Swayambhuva.
45
This legend is palpably the same as that of the rapture of
Hesperus from the top of mount Atlas : nor is it without reason, that the
Mohammedans style the Ceylonic hill the peak of Adam, and believe that
the person who thence ascended was the protoplast. Just as mount Atlas is
immediately connected both with the deluge and with the Paradisiacal garden
of the Hesperides; so is the Ceylonic hill the sacred abode of Buddha, in his
character both of Adam and of Noah. It is the Ararat or Meru of the
Singalese : and the great father is reported to have been translated from its
summit, only because Enoch was believed to have been one of his interme
diate antediluvian manifestations. '
5. The religion of Buddha or Sacya or Xaca has spread itself far northM ard among the Calmucks, as well as southward among the Singalese : and
the same legend of his translation has been preserved by the former, no less
than by the latter, people. Among other idols, says Van Strahlenberg,
they worship in a peculiar manner one, which they call Xaca or XacaMuni. They say, that four thousand years ago he was only a sovereign
prince in India; but, on account of his unparalleled sanctity, God had
taken him up to heaven alive.* Thus miraculously is Buddha believed to have
been translated: yet he is declared to have lived, during the period of one of
his manifestations, at the time of the deluge ; he is styled Narayana or the
dweller upon the waters ; he is identified with a person, who is called the
sovereign prince in the belly of the fish; he is said to have espoused 11a,
who communicated her name to the summit of Meru and whose father was
preserved in an ark; and he is himself that very father, both because Me
nu is described as espousing his own daughter Ila, and because Xaca incor
porates with his own appellation that of Muni or Menu. '
6. Precisely the same story is told of the Babylonian Xisuthrus; and I
account for it precisely in the same manner. When the vessel, in which he
had been preserved from the fury of the deluge, grounded, in* consequence of
the recess of the waters, on the side of a lofty mountain in Armenia, he quit
ted it with his wife and his children ; and, constructing an altar, immediately
* Asiat. Res. vol. vii. p. 50. Purch. Pilgr. b. v. C. 18. p. 550.
* Van Strahlenberg's Siberia, p. 409.
3 Asiat. Res. vol. vi. p. 479, vol. ii. p. 376.
CUAP' ,
46
worshipped the universal mother Earth, and offered sacrifices to the immortal
gods. After these rites had been duly performed, Xisuthrus, and (it is added)
those who came with him out of the ship, suddenly disappeared. The re
mainder of the crew, finding that they did not return, called with many la
mentations on the name of Xisuthrus. Him however they saw no more :
but they distinctly heard his voice in the air, admonishing them to venerate
the gods, and informing them that on account of his piety he had been thus
miraculously taken up to heaven. 1 I may remark, that Xisuthrus is trans
lated from the summit of an Armenian mountain, as Buddha and Hesperus
respectively ascend from the tops of the Ceylonese and Mauritanian peaks.
The stories have all originated from the same source, and relate to the same
compound personage. Mount Atlas, Cader Idris, the peak of Adam, and
the various sacred buildings of a pyramidal form, are equally copies of
that Armenian Ararat, which is feigned to have witnessed the translation of
Xisuthrus.
7. The preceding observations may perhaps throw some light on a re
markable antediluvian character; respecting whom, as mentioned in the
traditions of the pagans, there has been some difference of opinion. This
personage is called, with a slight variation, Annacus, Cannacus, or Nannacus.
According to Zenobius, who relates his history from Hermogenes, Cannaces was a king of the Phrygians before the time of Deucalion ; who, fore
seeing the deluge, collected men together into the temples to offer up tearful
supplications : w hence arose the proverb, mentioned by Herod, of weeping
like Cannaces. 1 A similar narrative is given by Suidas. Nannacus, says
he,was a person of great antiquity, prior to the time of Deucalion. He is
said to have been a king, who, foreseeing the approaching deluge, collected
every body together, and led them to a temple ; where he offered up prayers
for them, accompanied with many tears. There is likewise a proverbial ex
pression about Nannacus, which is applied to people of great antiquity. 1
The same legend is related by Stephanus Byzantinus, though with some
additional circumstances. They say, that there was formerly a king named
' Syncell. Chronog. p. 30. Euseb. Chron. p. 8.
Suid. Lex. vox Navyaxo;.
* Zcnob. in cpit, proverb.
47
Annacus, the extent of whose life was above three hundred years. The
people, who were of his neighbourhood and acquaintance, had inquired of an
oracle how long he was to live. The answer was, that, when Annacus died,
all mankind would be destroyed. The Phrygians on this account made great
lamentations : whence arose the proverb of weeping for Annacus, used
for persons or circumstances highly calamitous.
When the flood of
Deucalion came, -all mankind was destroyed, as the oracle had foretold.
Afterwards, when the surface of the earth began to be again dry, Zeus
ordered Prometheus and Minerva to make images of clay in the form of
men : and, when they were finished, he called the winds, and made them
breathe into each and render them vital. 1
Concerning this ancient character there has been, as I have already inti
mated, a difference of opinion. Mr. Baxter, from the circumstances of his
being placed before the flood, his being distinguished from Deucalion, and
his being called Cannaces or Canac, argues, that he must be the Enoch or
Ghanoch of Scripture : Mr. Bryant, on the contrary, supposes him to be
the patriarch Noah in his antediluvian state.* I am inclined to think, that
the latter opinion is the most nearly allied to truth, though I doubt whether
the former ought to be wholly rejected. According to the doctrine of the
Metempsychosis, Cannaces probably unites in his own person the two cha
racters of Enoch and Noah ; while a part of his history contains a yet ulte
rior reference to the first Menu or Adam.
The formation of men from clay,
and the breathing into them the breath of life, refer us to the commencement
of the antediluvian world, though placed, agreeably to the doctrine of a
succession of similar systems, at the opening of the postdiluvian world : the
name of Canac, his apparent distinction from Deucalion, and the general
impression which he leaves on the mind, seem not unnaturally to point him
out as the scriptural Enoch or Chanoch : but his character, when closely ex
amined, leads us almost inevitably to conclude, that he is more nearly allied
to Noah than either to Enoch or Adam.
He is represented, as being a
preacher of righteousness to the very time of the flood.
This description
exactly agrees with the character of Noah, but not with that of Enoch who
1 Stcph. Byzant. de Urb. vox Ixovioy.
* Archseolog. vol. i. p. 207. Bryanfs Anal. vol. ii. p. 204.
48
, was translated near five centuries before the dissolution of the old world.
The deluge is said to have commenced exactly when he died. This does not
at all answer to the character of Enoch, but it perfectly accords with that of
Noah : for, in the language of the mysteries, he died when he entered into
the Ark. which was considered as his coffin ; and he revived, or was born
again into a new state of existence, when he quitted it. The proverb, in
either of its forms, relates to mourning on account of a calamity. As Mr.
Bryant rightly observes, it has nothing to do with the antiquity of Cannaces,
which is the erroneous, supposition of Suidas : but it relates altogether to
certain memorable calamities, as Stephanus more properly teaches us.
The
first of the forms, he weeps or suffers as much as Cannaces did, seems to

have been used proverbially in the case of a person who had undergone great
afflictions :1 and the second, his lamentations are as bitter as the' lamenta
tions for Annacus, though somewhat differently modified, was similarly
applied to one who laboured under excessive grief. *
Now this weeping for
Cannaces tallies minutely with the doleful Orgies of the Phenician Adonis,
the Egyptian Osiris, the Phrygian Attis, and the Celtic Ilu. When the
great father was commemoratively inclosed by the priests within his ark, and
was supposed to be dead or to have descended into Hades or to have vanished
from the sight of mortals, they bewailed his calamities with loud lamenta
tions : no sufferings were like his ; no tears were so bitter as theirs. But,
when he was taken out of the ark, and was deemed to have been restored to
life or to have returned from Hades or to have once more manifested himself,
all which he allegorically did at the commencement of the new world ; then
the scene was changed, and the deepest woe was succeeded by the most
frantic joy.'
As for the distinction between Annacus and Deucalion, it
' Ta Kawaxou kXmsiv.

* To eiri Avvaxou y.Xaieiv.
3 Noah, though preserved, was yet deemed a man of eminent sorrows. I will adore, says
Taliesin in his poem of The spoils of the deep, / will adore the sovereign, the supreme ruler
of the land. If he extended his dominion over the shores of the world, yet in good order was
the prison of Gwair in the inclosure of Sidi ; no one before him entered into it. The htavy
blue chain didst thou, 0 just man, endure: and for the spoils of the deep woeful is thy song;
and till the doom shall it remain in the Bardic prayer. Thrice the number that would have
49
seems merely to relate to the two different lives of the patriarch before and
after the deluge : whence he was considered, as being of a double nature,
and as looking backward and forward into two successive worlds.
This divi
sion of one man into two persons is very common in pagan mythology : and
the separation of Cannaces from Deucalion is nothing more than the similar
separation of Horus from Osiris ; each of whom, though exhibited in the
relationship of son and father, are equally Noah viewed under two different
aspects.
VIII. Cannaces is said to have surpassed the age of three hundred years.
This agrees better with the duration of Enoch's life who was translated when
three hundred and sixty five years old, than with that of Noah who had
completed six centuries at the time of the flood. The legend however serves
to shew, in conjunction with other similar legends, that the longevity of the
early patriarchs was well known throughout the gentile world.
Such is the purport of Hesiod's assertion, that, in the silver age, which
immediately succeeded the age of Paradisiacal innocence and immortality,
men, at the end of a century from their birth, were still but infants. To
this passage Josephus seems to allude, when mentioning the general testi
mony, which the ancients, in perfect accordance with the Pentateuch, bore
to the longevity of the first race. After stating the long lives of the antedi
luvians on the authority of Moses, he observes, All those persons, whether
Greeks or Barbarians, who have written on the subject of antiquity, agree
with me in this point.
For Manetho who composed an account of the Egyp-
Jilled Prydwen, vie entered into the deep ; excepting seven, none have returned from Caer Sidi.
Davies's Mythol. of Brit. Druids, p. 515. The prison of Gwair or the inclosure of Sidi,
the Sida of the Hindoos, the Saida of the Canaanites, the Said of the Egyptians, the Sito
or Ceres of the Sicilians, in other words the great mother represented by the circular inclosure
of Stonehenge that Druidical copy of the circle of Ila ; the inclosure of Sidi is the Ark :
Gwair or Hu or the just man is Noah, the Sadik of Moses and Sanchoniatho : the doleful
song on account of suffered calamity answers to the lamentations for Cannaces or Adonis or
Osiris: and the seven, who alone return with him in safety from the deep where all the rest
of mankind had perished, are his family, the same as the seven Cabiri or seven Titans or
seven Rishis of Hindostan, who at the end of each world are preserved with a Menu in a
papacious ark during the prevalence of an universal deluge.
Pag. Idol.
vOL. JJ,
CMAP. "'
so
book m.
t'ianSi ^ Berosus who compiled a narrative of the affairs of Chaldea,

and Mochus, and Hestiius, and Jerome the Egyptian, who were the authors
of different histories of Phenicia ; all these bear testimony to my veracity.
Hesiod likewise, and Hecateus, and Hellanicm, and Acusilaus, and Ephorus, and Nicolaus, relate, that the ancients lived a thousand years. 1
Of this general tradition Varro, as we learn from Lactantius, was not igno-rant : but he attempted to account for the supposed longevity of the primitive
race of mortals, by conjecturing, that the thousand years, to which they
attained, were only a thousand months or lunar revolutions. Such a solution
however, as it is well argued by Lactantius, is wholly inadmissible: for,
according to the conjecture of Varro, those, who then reached the greatest
age will fall considerably short of what many have done even in our own days.
Every person, who lives a century, lives full twelve hundred of those lunar
years to which Varro would reduce the years of the first period ; and con
sequently exceeds the age of the first men, so celebrated for their longevity,
by upwards of two hundred of such years. But many moderns have lived
more than a century ; and therefore have still more exceeded that age of the
primitive mortals, which tradition uniformly asserts to have been so great.*
Nor is this all : if the computation be made by such years as Varro proposes,
it will not be easy to point out the particular period, when that mode of reck
oning is to cease. The ages of the patriarchs are regularly specified in
Holy Writ even beyond the days of Jacob ; and, if lunar revolutions be still
usedj the absurdity will be evident : for, in that case, the old age of Abra
ham, when his son was born by a peculiar interposition of heaven, will
amount to something more than eight solar years.
According to Couplet, the Chinese have precisely the same idea of the
longevity of the antediluvians. Some of these they suppose to have attained
the age even of eight or ten thousand years; an age far surpassing that,
which Scripture assigns to them. This however must either be an exagge
ration of national vanity, in order that their records may extend to an incre
dibly remote period; or the true ages of the antediluvians must have been
decupled, by way of making them more extraordinary ; or else the years in
' Joseph. Ant. Jud. lib..i. c. 3.
* Lactant. Iostit. lib. ii. c. 12.

question must really have been, what Varro supposed the thousand years to cakp' iu
be, lunar revolutions : according to either of which last suppositions, the
Mosaical and Chinese accounts will coincide with a sufficient degree of accu
racy to shew whence such a tradition originated. It is a curious circum
stance, that the Emperor Hoang-Ti, who, by the chronology of China,
must have been contemporary with the patriarch Reu when the life of man
was shortened to about three hundred years, proposed an inquiry, in a medi
cal book of which he was the author, Whence it happened, that the lives of
their forefathers were so long compared with the lives of the then present
generation V
In fact, the rapid abbreviation of the ancient term of mortal existence,
which began to take place immediately after the flood, could not but have
greatly alarmed the early postdiluvians, and have filled their minds with
many anxious conjectures and melancholy forebodings.
Hence a singularly
accurate recollection of the precise time, when this abbreviation commenced,

was preserved by the Gentiles : it was supposed, that the life of man began
to be shortened from the days of Iapetus. * Exactly agreeable to this opi
nion is the scriptural narrative. Immediately after the deluge, and conse
quently at the precise era when Japhet and his children flourished, the lon
gevity of the human race was first curtailed : and it henceforth experienced
a gradual diminution, until the present age of man became the average
standard.
From the same source plainly originates the doctrine of the Burmas, that
in the course of every mundane revolution the life of the human species
becomes shorter and shorter; and that afterwards it is gradually extended
until it again reaches its first duration, when the same abridgment once more
commences. The first man, they say, attained an almost inconceivable age :
but his children and grandchildren had successively shorter lives as they be
came less virtuous; and this decrease continued, until men came to live
1 Couplet Praefat. ad Sin. Chronol. p. 5.
* Horat. Carm. lib. i. od. 3. The language of Horace is so remarkable, that his words
deserve to be transcribed.
Semotique prius tarda necessitas
Lethi corripuit gradum.
52
only ten years, the span of mortal existence during the period of the greatest
wickedness. The progeny of these, considering the cause of such an awful
abbreviation, dedicated themselves more to the practice of virtue, and be
came worthy of living twenty years.
Afterwards their posterity, increasing
in the performance of good works, had their lives protracted, until at length
they again reached the age of the first man. Then commenced another
diminution, which was followed by another prolongation: and this alternate
decrease and increase must take place sixty four times after the reproduction
of a world, before that world will be again destroyed. 1
A somewhat similar idea prevails among the Buddhists of Ceylon. Dur
ing the continuance of the present mundane system, which is the faithfully
reflected image of every former system, there will be a successiv e diminution
in the lives of men, until they are reduced so low as not to continue beyond
five years ; and, when they are at the shortest, every one will commit un
heard of crimes. A terrible rain will then sweep from off the face of the
earth all except a small number of good people, who will receive timely
notice of the evil and thus avoid it. All the wicked, after being drowned,
will be changed into beasts : until at length Buddha, or the great father,
will appear and establish a new order of things. * Little need be said re
specting this fable : it is palpably built on the theory of a succession of similar
worlds ; and, because the life of man began to be shortened from the com
mencement of the present postdiluvian world, while theformer world termi
nated with an universal flood, a parallel abbreviation and a parallel end by
water is made to characterize every fictitious mundane system.
IX. The number of generations from Adam to Noah is represented in
Scripture as being ten, each of those patriarchs being included in the series ;
so that Noah stands in the ninth place of descent from Adam. This num
ber was well known to the Gentiles : and it was from their traditional ac
quaintance with it added to the established doctrine of a succession of simi
lar worlds, that Abraham, as we have already seen, was esteemed a mani
festation of Cronus or Menu.
The Hindoos celebrate ten antediluvian children of Brahma, and describe
* Asiat. Res. yol.vi. p. 181, 182.
1 Asiat. Res. vol. vii. p. 415.
THE ORIGrN OF PAGAN TDOLATRT.

them as being succeeded by the seven Rishis.
53
These last I take to be really
the same as the seven Menus, exhibited anew under a different modification.
The seven Menus are said to be sprung from the ten Brahmadicas or children
of Brahma ; while the seven Rishis are pronounced to be the immediate
offspring of Brahma himself. Now the seven Rishis, with an eighth person
the head of their family, escape in a boat from the general destruction pro
duced by an universal deluge. The seven Rishis therefore with their leader
Menu are plainly the eight arkite mariners. But the seven Menus are seven
supposed manifestations of the great father, from the epoch of the creation
to that of the deluge. Hence in this respect they are not the same as the
seven Rishis. Yet their mutual connection appears from the identity of the
numbers : and it is so perfectly arbitrary to say, that there were seven Menus
between the creation and the deluge, while Noah had really seven companions
in the Ark, that the Menus must have been pronounced to be seven because
the Rishis were seven. Thus far therefore they agree. And now, when we
call to mind the prevailing belief in transmigration and reappearance, it will
not be unreasonable to conjecture with Mr. Wilford, that, whatever distinc
tion may have been made between them, the seven Menus and the seven
Rishis are ultimately the same seven individual persons. The conjecture is
rendered the more probable by our finding, that the Brahmadicas are pro
nounced sometimes to be ten, and sometimes only seven, in number; and
that Atri, who must evidently be identified with Edris or Idris, is described
as being at once a Brahmadica and a RishL From this last circumstance we
must necessarily conclude, that, when the Brahmadicas are represented as
ten, they shadow out the ten antediluvian generations ; and that, when they
appear as only seven, they coalesce with the seven Rishis and seven Menus.
Much the same variation may be observed in the number of the Cabiric
gods : sometimes, by the name of the Idei Dactyli, they are said to have
been ten ; sometimes they are described as seven ; and sometimes, when the
head of their family is joined to them, they are spoken of as eight. The
confusion originated almost necessarily from the causes which have been
just specified. Every dynasty ends with a total destruction of the human
race, except the Menu or ruler of the next period, who makes his escape in
a boat with the seven Rishis.
The same events take place : the same per
54
sons, though sometimes under different names, reappear.
It being thus
known that there were ten generations before the flood, and it being argued
that when ten more had elapsed after the flood the world would be again
destroyed; Abraham, appearing in the ninth postdiluvian place of descent
from Shem as Noah had appeared in the ninth anterliluvian place of descent
from Adam, and also flourishing when the cities of the plain were over
whelmed by a mixed deluge of fire and water, was thence pronounced to be
the expected manifestation of a new Cronus or Menu or Ilus. *
The Hindoos, having assigned seven Menus to the period before the flood,
and strongly maintaining the mutual similarity of all the successive worlds,
were in consequence led to place seven Menus after the flood : and thus
they produced a series of fourteen Menus. There is great reason to believe,
that the fourteen periods of this double series are the very same as the reigns
of the fourteen Mahabads of Iran ; for Mahabad is clearly no other than
Menu or Buddha : and they are likewise closely connected with the seven
fabled mundane successions of that nation.
In this last case, when the bird
Simorgh tells Caherman, that she had lived to see the earth seven times
filled with creatures and seven times a perfect void, we have only the simple
number seven instead of the reduplicate numberfourteen.
It may be observed, that, as the ten antediluvian children of Brahma are
sometimes reduced to seven which is the number of the arkite Rishis ; so at
other times they are said to have been nine, which is still the same as ten
when their parent Brahma or Menu-Swayambhuva is included ; while at
other times again they are declared to have been no more than three, who
are then pronounced to have been the sons of Adima. These are all varia
tions, or rather subdivisions, of the original number ten, so contrived as to
exhibit the equally important numbers of seven and three : and the close
connection of the seven Brahmadicas, the seven Menus, and the seven
Rishis, for which I have contended with Mr. Wilford, sufficiently appears
from the curious manner in which the Hindoos blend them together. The
* From Adam to Noah inclusive, were ten generations : and these were succeeded by ten
other generations, from Shem to Abraham also inclusive. Abraham therefore was the tenth
person of the second decad, as Noah was the tenth person of the first : but Abraham was
the njnth in desceut from Shem, as Noah was the ninth in descent from Adam.
55
seven great ancestors of mankind were first Brahmadicas, created for the
purpose of replenishing the earth with inhabitants : when they had fulfilled
their mission, they became Menus or mundane sovereigns : and in their old
age, when they withdrew to solitary places to prepare for death, they became
Rishis or holy penitents.
There is yet another modification of the fable, in which we may still trace
the same studied attention to the numbers ten, seven, and three. Swayambhuva, or Brahma incarnate in Adima, is said to have divided the world
among seven of his ten sons, while three embraced the eremitical life. An
exactly similar story is told of Priyavrata, the grandson of Adima ; whence
it is evident, that one character is represented by each of them. This se
cond story terminates with an ogdoad of sons, in whose time the earth was
again divided. To what era the last division is to be ascribed, may be col
lected from the character of Ila the reputed sister of these eight persons y
who is sometimes thought to be the daughter of Bharata, and is sometimes
described as the child of Satyavrata who was saved in an ark at the time of
the deluge. Such modifications teach us how we are to understand the va
rying legends, which now assign to Brahma ten sons, now nine, now seven,
and now three : they retain the number ten, but subdivide it so as to produce
the other sacred numbers.
The Hindoos however do not always describe the ten antediluvian genera
tions in this compound and perplexed manner : when they quit the regions of
mysticism and condescend to literal matter of fact, they then draw out ten
successive descents precisely in the manner of Scripture, beginning with
Adim and Iva, and terminating with a pious prince named Prithu, who is
plainly the same as Noah or Menu-Satyavrata.
When Prithu was born, both
gods and men came to make obeisance to him and to celebrate his appear
ance upon earth. He was a highly religious character, and addicted himself
to agricultural pursuits. He was thought to have espoused a form of Lacshmi
or the great mother : and it was during his days, that his mystical consort,
in the shape of a cow, ascended to the summit of the Paradisiaco-diluvian
Meru or Ararat. Little need be said in explanation of this legend. The
cow was the universal symbol of the great mother, who united in herself the
two characters of the Earth and the Ark. She was the same as the ship
HAP- ,
56
Argha or Argo ; and by the Syrians she was denominated Theba, which
properly signifies an ark. The cow therefore of Prithu the husbandman,
the ninth in descent from Adim, when stationed on the top of Meru, is the
Ark of Noah, mystically united with the Earth, when resting on the summit
of Ararat.1
I am inclined to believe, that the precise number of the Hindoo Avatars
of Vishnou has been determined to be ten in reference to the same ten ante
diluvian generations. They doubtless indeed commence with the deluge,
and the last is believed to be yet future : but, when we recollect how strong
ly the doctrine of a succession of similar worlds is maintained by the Brahmenical philosophers, we shall not find in this circumstance any argument to
disprove such an opinion. The tenth Avatar, in fact, is a complete diluvian
symbol. Vishnou, arrayed with the attributes of the destroying regenera
tor Siva, appears, as an armed warrior, to sweep away the incorrigible
inhabitants of the earth.
The white horse, which accompanies him,
is one of the most common hieroglyphics of the great father, as the
mare is of the great mother ; for this mode of representation has prevailed
from Japan in the east to Britain in the west.1
And, though the mundane
dissolution, which he is to accomplish, is ostensibly future; it must no less,

according to a favourite dogma of the Hindoos, be considered as long since
past : for they believe, as I have had occasion so frequently to observe, that
every world is succeeded, as it has been preceded, by a perfectly similar
world ; that the great father is manifested as a destroyer at the close, and
as a regenerator at the commencement, of each system ; and that world af
ter world, in endless series, is overwhelmed by a deluge, from which a Me
nu with seven Rishis is preserved in an ark.
A recollection of the ten antediluvian generations was equally preserved
among the ancient Atlantians. Plato informs us, that a marine hero-god, to
whom he gives the Greek appellation of Posidon or Neptune, divided the
* Asiat. Res. vol. v. p. 244255. vol. ii. p. 346. vol. viii. p, 286, 334, 335.
Instit. of
Menu. chap. i. p. 5.
* Asiat. Res. vol. i. p. 236. Maurice's Hist, of Hiad. vol. ii. p. 503. Kampfer's Japan,
p. 247. Dawes's Mythol. of Brit. Druids, p. 257, 258. Sec my Dissert, on the Cabiri,
chap. vii.
57
island Atlantis among his ten sons; just as Brahma or Adima similarly divided the earth among his children. The first inhabitants of that island
were remarkable for their piety : but, afterwards degenerating and becoming
guilty of all sorts of violence and impurity, they were overwhelmed, toge
ther with their country, by the waves of the ocean. Atlantis then, like the
earth which Adima divided among his offspring, must have been the antedilu
vian world : and, if so, the ten sons of Neptune, who inhabited it previous
to its submersion, must be viewed as shadowing out the ten antediluvian ge
nerations. The opinion is confirmed, both by the gradual deterioration of
manners ascribed to its inhabitants, and by an old tradition preserved by
Cosmas Indico-Pleustes, that it was formerly tenanted by Noah, and that,
when it sank, he sailed in an ark to the continent.'
A very distinct remembrance of the same ten antediluvian generations
prevailed also among the ancient Chaldeans : for Berosus, Abydenus, and
Alexander Polylristor, all agree in reckoning ten inclusive descents from the
first man Alorus to the pious Xisuthrus, who was saved with his family in
an ark when the earth was inundated by the waters of an universal flood.1
1 See my Dissert, on the Cab. toI. ii. p. 283288. I shall have occasion hereafter to dis
cuss the fable of the island Atlantis more at large. Vide infra book iii. c. 6.$. 1. 1.
* Syncell. Cbronog. p. 30, 38, 39.
Pag. Idol.
VOI.. II.
CHAPTER
III
On the antediluvia7i and diluvian history as exhibited in the

Zend-Avesta.
But perhaps the most generally consistent detail of antediluvian history,

terminating with the catastrophe of the flood and the manifestation of the
second great father of mankind, has been preserved in the Zend-Avesta of
the ancient Persians.
I. I have already had occasion to notice their dividing the period of the
creation into six different intervals, analogous to the Mosaical division of it
into six days : and I then intimated my intention of offering some additional
observations on this curious legend, when a suitable opportunity should oc
cur.1 I now proceed to fulfil my engagement.
Where the cosmogony of the Persians terminates, their narrative of an
tediluvian transactions is properly made to commence. In the sixth and
last interval, as we have seen, man alone was created : but he is supposed to
have been mysteriously divided into two characters, distinguished from each
other as the man and the man-bull. These were the first of beings, and
did not spring from the union of male and female, but were formed imme
diately by the hand of God. The man was called Kaiomorts or Key' Vide supra book I. chap. 5. V".
THE ORIGIN 6F PAGAN IDOLATRY.
59
Umursh;' and the bull, Aboudad or Ab-Boud-Tat.1 The man lived, and
spoke : the bull died, and did not speak. That man was the beginning of
all generations. But the man and the bull were compounded together, con
stituting jointly one being ; so that the man was the pure and holy soul of
the man bull. For some time after the creation of this intelligent being,
there was a season of great happiness : and the man-bull resided in an ele
vated region, which the Deity had assigned to him.
At last an evil one, de
nominated Ahriman, corrupted the world. After having dared to visit hea
ven, he descended to the earth, assumed the form of a serpent, and intro
duced a number of wicked demons called Karfesters. The man-bull was
poisoned by his venom, and died in consequence of it.
It was said, that
the Dews of Maz ndran fought against the fixed stars, and that Ahriman,
independently of his machinations against Kaiomorts, had formed the de
sign of destroying the whole world. But the celestial Izeds, during twenty
four days and as many nights, fought against Ahriman and all the Dews ; un
til at length they defeated and precipitated them into Douzakh. From the
middle of Douzakh, Ahriman went upon the earth. There he threw the
whole world into confusion. For that enemy of good mingled himself with
every thing, appeared every where, and sought to do mischief both aboveand below.
The man-bull was now dead, but out of his left arm proceeded a being
named Goschoroun. He is said to have raised a cry louder than the shout
of a thousand men. Approaching Ormuzd the Creator, he thus addressed
him. What chief have you established in the world? Ahriman is employed
in rapidly destroying the earth, in hurting the trees, and in drying up their
juices by the agency of scalding water. Where is the man, of whom you
have spoken ? Let him now prepare to engage himself to make good the evil
that has been done. Ormuzd replied to him. The bull, O Goschoroun, has
jallen sick of the malady, with which Ahriman has infected him. But that
man is reservedfor an earth, for a time, when Ahriman will not be able to
exercise his violence.
Goschoroun was now full of joy :: he consented to
' M. Anquetil writes the word Kaiomorts : but the appellation is a oompound one.
* This name is also a compound.
, .
i
;j
6o
oox nt.
thati which Ormuzd demanded of him : and he said, I will take care of all
the creatures in the world.
After this it was resolved to put Ahriman to flight, and to destroy all
those wicked persons whom he had introduced upon the earth ; for there was
now an universal opposition to the supreme God Ormuzd. At this time a se
cond man-bull appeared, who bore the name of Taschter. He is spoken of,
both as a star, and as the sun : yet he is also mentioned, as a person who ex
isted upon earth under three forms. To Taschter was committed the charge
of bringing on the deluge.
Meanwhile Ahriman went on in his rebellion, and was joined by the
wicked race of the Darvands. The chief of them accosted the evil spirit
in the following words. O Ahriman, raise yourself up with me. I go to
fight and bind Ormuzd and the Amschaspands. Then he, the origin of evil,
twice counted the Dews separately, and was not content. Ahriman wished
to quit that abject state, to which the sight of the pure man had reduced
him. The Darvand Dje said to him. Raise yourself with me to enter into
this war.
What evils will I bring upon the pure man and upon the bull I
After they have suffered what I shall inflict upon them, they will no longer
be able to live, I will corrupt their light : I will be in the water : I will be
in the trees: I will be in thefire of Ormuzd: I will be in every thing that
Ormuzd has made. He, whose every action is evil, then proceeded twice
to review his troops.
But the daring rebellion was speedily crushed ; Ahri
man was put to flight ; and the victory remained with Ormuzd.
On this it was thought necessary to bring over the face of the earth an
universal deluge of waters, that all impurity might be washed away : and,
as the second man-bull Taschter was the person appointed to effect this great
work, he forthwith set about it. Taschter was seconded by Bahman, by
Hom-Ized, and by Beni-Baizo-Ized. The pure souls watched with care
over his safety. On this occasion, he had, as it were, three bodies ; the
body of a man, the body of a horse, and the body of a bull. His light
shone on high during thirty days and thirtv nights, and he caused rain to
descend under each body for the space of ten days. Every drop of that
rain was like a large salver. The earth was wholly covered with water to
the height of a man : and, the streams penetrating to its very inmost re

cesses, all the Kharfesters perished in the mighty inundation.
61
So prodigious
was the quantity of rain : and it fell in drops, each of which equalled in bulk
the head of an ox.
At length the waters began to retire, and were again confined within their
proper bounds : for a violent wind, during three days, agitated them on all
sides upon the earth. Meanwhile God the creator drove back all the waters
from the Arg-Roud.1 Then he caused mount Albordi to appear, and after
wards the other mountains. All these mountains multiplied themselves from
the root of Albordi, as suckers are propagated from a tree : and at last the
surface of the whole earth became visible. The particular region, in which
Albordi was situated, bore the name of Ferakh-kand: and there Ormuzd
planted the germs of all the Kharfesters, who remained, and from whom all
things were destined to spring. Here another bull was framed, which was
the author of all abundance. We are likewise told, that two animals of this
species were produced, a male and a female : and from them the Universe
was derived. The mode of their production is not a little remarkable. The
seed of the first-mentioned bull was purified in the moon : it was then formed
into a living body : and out of that body sprang a bull and a cow. From
them all kinds of animals, and birds, and fishes, originated.*
II. With 'respect to the genuineness of the Zend-Avesta, whence the pre
ceding citation is taken, it is not to be dissembled, that various opinions have
been entertained. Mr. Bryant is disposed to admit it, as an authentic relic of
antiquity :' Dr. Prideaux strongly maintains it to be a mere garbled compila
tion from the Hebrew Scriptures, the work of Zeradusht, who flourished in
the time of Darius Hystaspis and who had been a servant of the prophet
Daniel :4 Sir William Jones, on the authority of Mohsan the author of
the Dabistan, seems to think, that the present Zend-Avesta is a compilation
* M. Perron's French is dans FArg-Roud ; but the sense seems to me to require, that the
Original should have been translated from, not in.
* Zend-Avesta, vol. iii. p. 348371. vol. i. p. 353, 351, 354, 334, 352, 356, 359. apud
Bryant.
1 Anal. vol. iii. p. 599, 600.
* Pridiaux's Connect, part i. b. iv. p. 219 et infra.
CHAP.
62
book in.
THE ORIGIN OF PAGAN IDOLATEY.
from the work of Zeradusht which itself is no longer in existence :' and Mr.
Richardson broadly asserts, that it carries palpable marks of the total or
partialfabrication of modern times.'' Of these opinions, it is obvious, that
those of Bryant and Richardson form the two extremes.
Equally various have been the sentiments concerning its reputed author.
Prideaux and Hyde allow the existence of only one Zeradusht, called by
the Greeks Zoroaster: Bryant maintains, that the name Zoroaster and the
name Zeradusht are wholly different : and Richardson tells us, that the two
characters have so little resemblance to each other, that, unless Dr. Hyde and
other orientalists had resolved at all events to reconcile the identity of their
persons, we should have much difficulty to discover a single similarfeature.
Amidst these discordant views of the subject, it requires some caution to de
termine, what degree of credit is due to the mythological history of the
Zend-Avesta.
So far as I can judge, the moderate opinion of Sir William Jones bids
the fairest to be the truth. Internal evidence, to which alone we must ulti
mately resort, appears to me equally to set aside those of Prideaux and
Richardson : for, though the outline of the Zend-Avestaic story corresponds
with the Mosaical narrative, the mode of telling it is altogether pagan and
does not bear the least resemblance to the plain detail of the Jewish law
giver ; and it is so replete with those remarkable mythologic and symbolical
notions, which are common to the whole gentile world, that its groundwork
cannot possibly be a mere modern invention, if such be the idea which Mr.
Richardson wishes us to ascribe to his term fabrication. This last is Mr.
Bryant's argument to prove the genuine antiquity of the present Zend-Avesta:
and it avails, I think, to prove that the groundwork of it must be authentic ;
but it is insufficient to prove,
especially against those able orientalists
who are best qualified to decide the point, the absolute authenticity of the
composition itself.
The Zend-Avesta may be a compilation of modern
times, though hmo far modern I will not pretend to determine : yet the ma
terials, which it contains, may nevertheless be most curious and valuable
1 Discourse on the Persians. Asiat. Res. vol. ii. p. 51.
* Richardson's Dissert, sect. ii.
..."
63
fragments of real antiquity. Thus the writings of Tzetzes and the other
Greek scholiasts are comparatively modern : yet they contain some of the
most precious relics, which we have, of old pagan mythology. No one ever
suspects, that they invented the fables which they relate, though many of
them now occur no where else : I see not therefore, why we should imagine,
in plain contradiction to internal evidence, that the contents of the ZendAvesta are a modern fabrication, by this term meaning invention.
Sir William Jones, if I do not misunderstand him, ascribes the original
Zend-Avesta to Zeradusht, whom he places a small matter earlier than Dr.
Prideaux.1 If it were the work of a person who was contemporary with
Darius Hystaspis, I should suspect that neither was he the inventor of it,
but that he had either copied from some yet older book (of which his pro
duction might be esteemed a then modernized edition), or that (like Ovid)
he had collected together into one volume various scattered legends. The
probability of this opinion will appear in the sequel : at present I shall con
sider the hypothesis of Dr. Prideaux, who roundly declares the Zend-Avesta
to be a mere compilation from the Pentateuch made by a slave of Daniel in
the time of Darius Hystaspis.
] . This point I should conceive to be the most satisfactorily determined
(at least so far as the preceding citations are concerned, in the fate of which
alone I am interested) by comparing them with the writings, whence they
are supposed to have been taken.
Now it appears to me, that, except the regular and systematic arrange
ment of the story and the dogma of the world having been created at six
successive times, there is not only nothing which might not have been just
as well borrowed from the general mythology of the old heathens as from the
Pentateuch ; but nearly the whole narrative is couched in terms, which must
have been taken from ancient symbolical mythology, and which in their pre
sent form could not have been taken from the Pentateuch. Zeradusht had
no occasion to resort to the book of Genesis, in order to learn either the
1 Dr. Prideaux, on the authority of Clemen* Alexandrinus, represents Pythagoras as hav
ing been his pupil, whereas Sir ^yilliam Jones thinks it barely possible that they could have
conversed together. They agree however in fixing him to the age of Gushtasb or Darius
Hystaspis.
64
history of the creation in its great outline, or the Paradisiacal happiness of

the first man, or his fall in consequence of yielding to the temptation of
an evil being who assumed the form of a serpent, or the universal wicked
ness of mankind before the flood: still less did he require to have received his
information respecting the deluge from tlx; Hebrew lawgiver. These matters
were well known throughout t!e whole world both eastern and western, though
perhaps in no other ancient system are they all successively detailed with so
much regularity and method. But Zeradusht relates them in a manner,
which he could not have learned from the Pentateuch, and which (supposing
him to be entirely the author of the Zend-Avesta) he must have altogether
learned from the old symbolical mythology. Thus Moses might have taught
him, that Adam was the first man of the antediluvian world, and Noah the
first man of the postdiluvian world : but the idea of representing the one as
a sort of revival of the other and of considering the two as a first and se
cond man-bull, while it perfectly accords with the gentile notion of a succes
sion of similar worlds and with the gentile practice of typifying by a bull
the transmigrating great father or Adam reappearing in the person of Noah ;
such an idea could not have been borrowed from the book of Genesis.
Thus also Moses might have told him, that the first woman was deceived
by a serpent, that death was the consequence of yielding to the temptation,
that a Saviour was obscurely promised who should bruise the head of the
serpent, and that the flood was the punishment of antediluvian wickedness :
but, though the facts detailed in the Zend-Avesta coincide sufficiently with
those related in the Pentateuch to prove their identity ; yet the manner, in
which they are detailed, is so peculiar, and differs so widely from the simple
narrative of Moses, that it is hard to conceive how the one history could have
been a mere transcript of the other. From various gentile legends it might have
been learned, that certain evil beings had been cast out of heaven, that they were
opposers of God, and that they were closely connected with the serpent : but Mo
ses does not positively tell us any thing of the kind. In the story of Goschoroun,
and in the promise of some holy man who should hereafter appear, we may
easily recognize a corrupted belief in a future Deliverer, from whatever source
such a belief might originate : but in the Pentateuch there is nothing, that
in detail bears the least resemblance to these legends.
The notion, that
65
the evil principle was in the waters and that the deluge proceeded from him, CHAF" ,H*
was prevalent both in Egypt and Hindostan and Greece ; and may be recog
nized in the fables of Typhon, Hayagriva, the Asoors, and the serpent Py
thon : but no such notion could have been drawn from the narrative of Moses.
When Zeradusht tells us, that the second man-bull was assisted in the task of
bringing on the flood by three other personages, he might indeed have learn
ed the existence of such characters from the Pentateuch; but the mythology
of perhaps every nation upon the face of the earth would have equally im
pressed him with the belief in a great diluvian triad, emanating from, and
intimately blended with, a paternal monad. On the contrary, when he in
forms us, that this same man-bull triplicated himself into three bodies, that of
a man, that of a horse, and that of a bull ; we find nothing like such an
opinion in the book of Genesis : but we do find, that the great father was
believed to have been mysteriously triplicated, as the ancient hierophants
delighted to express the simple fact of his having three sons ; we do find, that
the bull and the horse were universally symbols of this primeval character,
by whatever name he might be venerated. So again : the purification of the
seed or offspring of the man-bull within the Moon precisely at the time of
the flood, and the deducing the postdiluvian origin of all things from that
planet, quite agree with the universal heathen practice of astronomically
representing the Ark by the lunette : but, in whatever light the Moon might
be considered by the early patriarchs, there are no traces of any such specu
lations in the plain historical narrative of Moses. Equally improbable is it,
that the Zend-Avesta should have been a fabrication from the Pentateuch,
if we consider its striking omissions, as we have hitherto done its palpable
deviations. When the pretended servant of Daniel sat down to his labour
of forgery with the writings of the Hebrew lawgiver before him, he would
obviously embellish his detail with the history of Cain and Abel, and would
not fail to notice the specious miracle of the translation of Enoch : at any
rate, if these matters were passed over in silence, it is impossible to believe,
that in a professed account of the deluge he would totally neglect to mention
the Ark. Yet such is the case with the legend before us : nothing is said of
the murder of Abel ; nothing, of the rapture of Enoch ; nothing, literally
and ostensibly, of the Ship within which the tauric patriarch and his family
Pag. Idol.
vox. ii.
66
, were preserved.
This last is indeed mentioned : but it is mentioned in a
manner so purely mystical, that none but the initiated would understand
what was meant. The Arg-Roud is plainly enough the ship Argha ; and the
Moon, which is described as the parent of the Universe at the exact time of
the deluge, will easily be recognized by the mythologist as the astronomical
symbol of the Ark : but such a mode of noticing the Ship of the great father,
if it prove any thing, will much rather prove, that the author of the ZendAvesta had not seen the Pentateuch, than that he had. In short, if this
book be wholly the work of a Zeradusht who flourished in the time of Darius
Hystaspis, and if that Zeradusht had conversed with Daniel (which is allow
ing the whole that Dr. Prideaux calls upon us to allow as necessary to his
conclusion, and much more than we are any way bound to allow): even then
it would appear to me, from the mere force of internal evidence, that little
of the legend beyond its systematic arrangement could have been borrowed
from the Pentateuch, and that the great mass of materials must have been
derived from quite another source ; namely the old and generally received
system of mythology, with which we must unavoidably conclude Zeradusht
to have been well acquainted.
Supposing then that the Zend-Avesta was the sole work of a sole Zera
dusht, as Dr. Prideaux contends, 1 should certainly conclude from internal
evidence, that its author had taken the sacred traditional fables of his coun
try, and had wrought them up into a regular chronological form on the model
afforded him by the Pentateuch : or, to explain my meaning by a somewhat
parallel instance, if we admit that Ovid had perused the Greek translation
of the Seventy (which I think more than probable), I should conceive that
he composed the beginning of his Metamorphoses, much in the same man
ner as Zeradusht composed the Zend-Avesta. No one can properly say,
that the narrative of the Latin poet is a mere garbled compilation from Scrip
ture, though to his acquaintance with the Greek translation it perhaps owes
that chronological regularity and consistency, which we vainly look for in the
writings of Hesiod : and I think we can, with as little shew of reason and
propriety, set aside unceremoniously and in the gross the whole Zend-Avesta
of the Persian, even admitting his acquaintance with the exordium of Gene
sis.
Any person, even the most moderately Conversant with old mythology,
67
cannnot but sec, that, however Zeradusht may have systematized his work in
consequence of his intercourse w ith the Jews of the Babylonian captivity, its
materials must have been borrowed from the ample fund of Paganism : and
no acquaintance with mythology is necessary to produce the conviction, that
they cannot have been furnished by the primeval history of the Pentateuch.
Such would be my conclusion, if it had been proved that the Zend-Avesta
was the sole production of a sole Zeradusht, who was contemporary with
Darius Hystaspis and who had conversed with the prophet Daniel : but this
point does not appear to me to have been proved. There is reason to think,
that the present Zend-Avesta is a comparatively modern compilation from the
Zend-Avesta of a Zeradusht who probably flourished in the time of Darius
Hystaspis : but I am strongly inclined to "believe, that even this work was not
an original one, nor its author the sole Zeradusht.
I am strongly inclined
to believe, that there was a yet prior and most remotely ancient Zend-Avesta ;
that it was ascribed to a primitive Zeradusht, as the sacred books of the
Brahmenists and Buddhists are to a primitive Menu or Buddha ; and that it
was the ground-work of a later (the parent of the present) Zend-Avesta,
corrected and edited by a later and totally different Zeradusht.
To this opinion I lean from the mere force of internal evidence : I am
disposed to adopt it even independently of Sir William Jones's citation from
the Dabistan of Mohsan, which however remarkably confirms it. Mohsan
informs us, that, according to the most intelligent of those Persians who
professed the faith of Hushang, the first king both of Persia and of all the
earth was Mahabad.
This prince divided the people into four orders ; the
sacerdotal, the military, the commercial, and the servile : and gave appella
tions to them, unquestionably the same in their origin with those, which are
now applied to the four primary classes of Hindostan. He is said to have
received from the Creator, and to have promulgated among men, a sacred
book in a heavenly language : and it was believed, that fourteen Mahabads
had appeared or would appear in human shapes for the government of the
world. The whole of this legend is so palpably Hindoo, that the system of
the ancient Persians must have been the very same as that, which, under
certain modifications, is alike maintained both by Brahmenists and
Buddhists. The sacred book of Mahabad is the code, which in one word
68
book m. may be denominated the Veda : the fourteen Mahabads are the fourteen
Menus : and Mahabad himself, the first sovereign of Persia and of the earth,
is that great father; who is thought to appear and to reign at the commence
ment of every mundane system, who is successively the Menu-Swayambhuva
and the Menu-Satyavrata of Hindostan, and who in plain language is Adam
supposed to be manifested anew in the person of Noah.
remarks, that the word Mahabad is apparently Sanscrit.
Sir William Jones

It seems indeed
very evidently to be the compound appellation Maha-Bad or the great

Buddha : and Buddha is in all respects the same mixed character as Menu,
and is plainly to be identified with him ; each is the great father successively
manifested for the government of the Universe. According then to this
account, there was an ancient sacred book received among the Persians
anterior to the time of the later Zeradusht, which Sir William Jones does
not hesitate to identify with the Institutes of Menu ; a book, that is the
standard at this moment of all religious and moral duties among the Hindoos.
The primeval theology of the Persians, if we may rely on the authorities
adduced by Mohsan, was pure theism : but this simple mode of worship
was of no long duration among them ; it speedily gave place to polytheism.
The accession of Cayumers to the throne of Persia, in the eighth or ninth
century before Christ, seems to have been accompanied by a considerable
revolution both in government and religion : and he probably began the new
system of national faith, which Hushang, whose name it bears, completed. 1
But the reformation was partial : for, while the Persians rejected the com
plex polytheism of their predecessors, they retained the laws of the sacred
book of Mahabad, and superstitiously venerated, the Sun, the Planets, and
the element of Fire.
At length, in the days of Zeradusht, the, reformation
of the old religion was completed ; and the system acquired that form, which
it retained until the country was subdued by the Musulmans. Zeradusht pre
served some of the ancient superstitious usages, and introduced others of his
own invention : but he was chiefly remarkable, as the author of a new work
which he pretended to have received from heaven, and as having established
the actual adoration of one Supreme Being.
This Zeradusht, according to
* See below book vi. c. 2. II. 2. and Append. Tab. v.
69
Mohsan, flourished contemporaneously with Gushtasb or Darius Hystaspis; CHA*.

and he is said to have travelled into Hindostan for the purpose of receiving
theological and ethical information from the Brahmens : consequently, he
must be the person, who, with whatever reason, is supposed by Dr. Prideaux to have conversed with Daniel.1
Now, if the preceding account of Mohsan may be depended upon, it
seems to me decidedly to confirm the opinion which I have advanced: and
I should conclude from it, when I view it in connection even with the present
Zend-Avesta, that the immediate parent of that work, the pretended new *
book of Zeradusht, was nothing more than a corrected edition of the origi
nal holy book of Mahabad. In short, I should conclude, that Mahabad
himself was the primitive Zeradusht; that his name had been assumed
by a later impostor, who, as a reformer and a legislative prophet, was es
teemed a manifestation of the great transmigrating father; that he was the
same as the Menu, to whom the Hindoos ascribe the Institutes; and that
his holy book, the remote groundwork of the present Zend-Avesta, was
much the same as the most ancient Veda.
Such a supposition will account satisfactorily for the strong resemblance
between the preceding extracts from the Zend-Avesta, and the legends of
the Hindoos relative to the same period. The evil principle Ahriman acts
the very same part with respect to the deluge, that the demon Hayagriva
does in one of the Hindoo traditions and the god Siva himself in another of
them.1
logy.
The Dews, his associates, are the Dewtahs of Brahmenical theo

Mount Albordi is the same as mount Mandar and mount Meru,
though the story may possibly have been corrected and rendered more simple
from the inspired account of Ararat : yet the notion of all the other hills
being the offspring of Albordi nearly resembles the Hindoo idea, that every
sacred mount, whether natural or artificial, is a smaller Meru and a splin
ter of the original holy mountain.
And the three forms of the second man-
bull; the horse, the bull, and the man; appear conspicuously in the third
of the Hindoo Avatars, which evidently relates to the great catastrophe of
the deluge. ' Thus, the more I consider the early history contained in the
* Asiat. Res. vol. ii. p. 60.
* Maurice's Hist, of Hind. vol. 1. p. 503.
3 See the print in Maur. Hist, of Hind. vol. 1. p. 581.
70
Zend-Avesta, the more I incline to deduce it from old mythology, and the
less I can bring myself to believe that it is a mere transcript from the writ
ings of Moses first made in the time of the prophet Daniel. *
2. The present supposition necessarily leads me to contradict Dr. Hyde
and Dr. Prideaux in another particular ; I mean their belief in the existence
of only one Zeradusht, whom they place in the reign of Gushtasb or Darius
Hystaspis.
As for the name itself, whether Mr. Bryant's opinion, that Zoroaster and
Zeradusht are two entirely distinct appellations of one or more persons, be
well or ill founded ; and whether his derivation of the word Zoroaster from
the compound term Sor-Aster, which he interprets to denote the bull-star
or the star of the bull, be right or wrong : his circumstantial evidence to
prove the remote antiquity of a character, whom the Persians appear to
have called Zeradusht and whom the Greeks certainly denominated Zoroas
ter, is most valuable and decisive.*
Such evidence, in my mind, far out-
* Dr. Prideaux says, that Abraham, Moses, Joseph, and Solomon, arc spoken of in the
Zend-Avesta conformably with their scriptural history. This circumstance will only prove,
that the knowledge of those characters had been derived from the Jews, and that so far the
Zend-Avesta had been indebted to Scripture: but it will not prove, in direct opposition to the
circumstantial evidence which has been adduced, that the early history contained in that book
was similarly derived. Dr. Prideaux likewise imagines, that the Zoroastrian veneration of
fire was borrowed from the appearance of God in the Shechinah between the Cherubim.
This opinion might have been deemed plausible, had such veneration been cottfived to Persia:
but the fact is, the veneration of the Sun, and thence of his emblem the sacred immortal fire,
pervaded more or less the mythology of every nation.
* Agathiat certainly seems to warrant the opinion, that Zoroaster and Zeradusht are in
themselves distinct appellations, although borne by one man. He says, OvTo; Ss o Zuigoxrrfot ljroi ZafaJijf Strri) yap tit' avr<y titnoyvâ. This Zoroaster is Zaradcs, for he has two
names. Agath. de Pers. lib. ii. p. 62. In this passage, Zarades is evidently an attempt to
express in Greek characters the Persian word Zeradusht : and we are told, that the person
rpoken of bore two names, Zarades (or Zeradusht) and Zoroaster. Yet I greatly doubt, whe
ther such testimony will quite warrant Mr. Bryant's supposition. Agalbias seems only to have
meant that the person, whom the Greeks called Zoroaster, was in his own country denominat
ed Zarades or Zeradusht; and that the real name had been so transmuted, that Zoroaster and
Zarades might well pass for two distinct titles. I am the more led to adopt this interpretation
of the passage, both because we know how strangely the Greeks were wont to corrupt any
THE ORIGIN OF PAGAN IDOLATRY^
71
weighs that of any comparatively modern Persian historians, who seem to eHAp,
have preserved the recollection of only the later Zeradusht : and the more
so, because, according to Mr. Richardson, no two histories can be more
perfectly dissimilar, than the Persian history from about the year 600 before
the Christian era to the Macedonian conquest as written by the Persians
themselves, and the same history as written by the Greeks.1 In the former
(so at least we are told), no mention is made of Cyrus ; nor does any prince
occur, whose actions at all resemble his : * there is not a syllable respecting
the expedition of Cambyscs against the Egyptians: nor can we discover a
vestige of the battles of Marathon, Thermopylae, Salamis, Platea, or Mycale; nor "of the mighty force, which Xerxes led out of Asia to overwhelm
the states of Greece.
But the great outline of the latter is confirmed by
Holy Scripture;' and both it and Scripture accord with the canon of Ptoleforeign term which offended the delicacy of their ears ; and because I have been assured by a
valued connection of my own, who is allowed to be one of the first orientalists of the present
day, that the Persians are wholly ignorant of any such appellation as Zoroaster. This, I
grant, does not absolutely prove the non-existence of such a name among tiieirforefathers :
but it renders the matter at least so suspicious, that it is imprudent to assign any etymology
to the word Zoroaster, which may be merely a Greek corruption of a very different name.
* From the year before Christ 6lO, says Mr. Richardson, till the Macedonian conquest, we
have the history of the Persians as given us by the Greeks, and the history of the Persians as
written by themselves. Betvceen those classes of miters, we might naturally expect some differ
ence of fads ; but ve should as naturally lookfor a few great lines, which might mark some
similarity of story : yet, from every search which I have had an opportunity to make, there
seems to be nearly as much resemblance between the annals of England and Japan, as between
the European and Asiatic relations of the same empire..
* I speak with the mouth of Mr. Richardson: but Sir William Jones not only pronounces,
without fear of contradiction, that the Greek Cyrus is the Persian Cai-Khosrau ; but tells us,
that the actions ascribed to this prince in the epic poem of Firdausi minutely correspond with
the actions ascribed to Cyrus by Ilerodotut. In short, as he strongly expresses himself, when
he doubts the identity of Louis Quatorze and Lewis the fourteenth, then, and not till then,
will he doubt the identity of Cyrus and Cai-Khosrau. Asiat. Res. vol. ii. p. 45. I, who am
no orientalist, pretend not to decide between these two eminent scholars; Arcades ambo ! I
can only say, that, if the Persian histories be what Mr. Richardson represents them to be,
I do not believe one syllabic of their contents. Dr. Hales has some good remarks on this sub
ject. See Chronol. vol. iii. p, 47. note *.
3 Exclusive of. the direct mention of Cyrus or Choresh, aud exclusive of the predictions
71
mok m.
myi which is founded on astronomical observations : so that, even putting

the divine authority of the Hebrew writings out of the question and viewing
them merely as historical records, we must surely allow, that two ancient
testimonies, the one occidental, the other oriental, and both confirmed by the
mathematical evidence deduced from the actual calculation of eclipses, far
overbalance one comparatively modern testimony. When I call to mind the
various revolutions which Persia has undergone, particularly that which in
troduced the religion of Mohammed, I can never be persuaded to place the
least reliance on a history so strangely contradictory both to Scripture, to
Ptolemy, and to the Greek historians.' But Mr. Bryant's evidence for the
nd history of his taking Babylon which remarkably accord with the Greek writers, Daniel
foretells the expedition of Xerxes into Greece, and assigns to him the very same place in the
succession from Cyrus which profane authors do. See Dan.xi. 2. and Bp. Newton's Dissert,
in loc.
* According to Sir William Jones, who speaks with his usual good sense on the subject,
the present Persians have no authentic history which reaches higher than the accession of the
Sassanian dynasty : consequently, though they may have preserved a tradition of the great
Cyrus which corresponds with the narrative of Herodotus, their history down to the Macedo
nian conquest, which Mr. Richardson confronts with the Greek history of the same period,
cannot be at all depended upon. The matter seems to me of considerable importance, because
Mr. Richardson exhibits the Persians as producing a history which can never be reconciled
either with Scripture or with the Greek historians : unless therefore we are willing to give up
the verity of the latter, we must deny the authenticity of the former. But let us hear the
judicious observations of Sir William on the subject, and our faith will probably not be much
shaken by the discrepancy in question.
It may seem strange, that the ancient history of so distinguished an empire should be yet so
imperfectly known ; but very satisfactory reasons may be assignedfor our ignorance of it : the
principal of them are the superficial knowledge of the Greeks and the Jews, and the loss of
Persian archives or historical compositions. That the Greek writers before Xenophon had no
acquaintance with Persia, and that all their accounts of it are wholly fabulous, is a paradox
too extravagant to be seriously maintained : but their connection with it in peace or war had
indeed been generally confined to bordering kingdoms under feudatory princes ; and the first
Persian emperor, whose life and character they seem to have known with tolerable accuracy,
was the great Cyrus, whom I call, withoutfear of contradiction, Cai-Khosrau.
As to the Persians themselves, who were contemporary with the Greeks and Jews, they must
have been acquainted with the history of their own times and with the traditional accounts of
past ages : but, in the numerous distractions which followed the overthrow of Dara, especially
in the great revolution on the defeat ofYadegird by the Saracen* A. D. 637651, their civil
73
existence of a primeval Zeradusht is deduced from the authentic source of CHAP- n,.
Greek writers : while the opinion, that there was only one later Zeradusht
who lived in the reign of Darius Hystaspis, rests, so far as I can understand
the question, upon the testimony of authors ; who, flourishing in a compara
tively modern age, are in complete discordance with every record, sacred
and profane, that can be deemed genuine. I cannot therefore hesitate
for a moment to decide in favour of the evidence brought forward by Mr.
Bryant : whence I conclude, that there was a primeval Zeradusht, the same
personage as Menu or Mahabad or Buddha ; who was long anterior to that
later Zeradusht, who assumed the name and imitated the heaven-descended
book of his remote predecessor.
Mr. Richardson says, that no two characters can be more unlike, than
that of the Persian Zeradusht and that of the Greek Zoroaster : and he very
justly, I think, censures Dr. Hyde and other orientalists for painfully la
bouring to identify them. 1 In fact, there is nothing very wonderful, that
two persons, who for the most part are entirely distinct, should have no
mutual resemblance. The Persian Zeradusht, according to Sir William
Jones and in the judgment of the Persian writers, is that later Zeradusht, who
seems to have flourished in the reign of Darius Hystaspis and to have been
histories were lost, as those of India have unhappily been. Hence it happened, that nothing
remains of genuine Persian history before the dynasty of Sasan, except a few rustic tradi
tions and fables, which furnish materials for the Shahnamah and which are still supposed to
exist in the Pahlavi language. All the annals of the Pishdadi or Assyrian race must be con
sidered as dark andfabulous ; and those of the Cayani family or the Medes and Persians, as
heroic and poetical : though the lunar eclipses, said to be mentioned by Ptolemy, fix the time
of Gushtasb, the prince by whom Zeradusht was protected. Of the Parthian kings, descended
from Arshac or Arsaces, we know little more than the names : but the Sasanis had so long an
intercourse with the emperors of Rome and Byzantium, that the period of their dominion may
ie called an historical age. Asiat. Res. vol. ii. p. 45 49.
The sum is this : neither Jews nor Greeks seem to have known much of Persia before the
time of Cyrus; but from his reign their accounts accord, and are checked by the astronomi
cal canon of Ptolemy. Are we then to give up their accounts, which undesignedly correspond
w ith each other, in favour of the mere fables of the modern Persians ; whose genuine history,
so far as it is preserved by themselves, reaches no higher than the time of Yezdegird i I think
not.
1 Richardson's Dissert, sect. ii.
Pag. Idol.
VOL. 11.
K
74
the compiler of the work whence the present Zend-Avesta has been taken.
The Zoroaster of the Greek writers, on the contrary, is, generally speaking,
a different and primeval Zeradusht; the same character as the Indian Menu,
or the transmigrating great father. To him, I conceive, the genuine heavendescended Zend-Avesta was ascribed : and, if the account of the Mahabadians given in the Dabistan of Mohsan be not altogether spurious, I am
firmly persuaded, that the primitive mythological Zeradusht (the Zoroaster
of the Greeks) was no other than Mahabad or the great Buddha, whom Sir
William Jones rightly identifies with Menu ; and that the real prototype and
groundwork both of the present Zend-Avesta, and of its predecessor the
Zend-Avesta which the later Zeradusht pretended to be of heavenly origin,
was that sacred book in a celestial language which Mahabad is said to have
received immediately from the Creator. At any rate, the internal evidence,
afforded by the contents even of the Zend-Avesta which we now possess,
appears to me directly to contradict the opinion of Dr. Prideaux, that its
history of the early ages was a mere plagiarism from the Pentateuch. Iam
willing therefore to rest in the belief, that this history is composed of certain
curious fragments of genuine antiquity, wrought up into a more regularly
chronological form, either by a later Zeradusht who had conversed with the
Jews of the captivity, or by the more modern compiler of the present ZendAvesta ; much in the same manner as Ovid, probably from his having pe
rused the translation of the Seventy, has arranged more systematically the
materials afforded him by Hesiod and other old writers.
If we may credit the testimony of the Greek and Latin authors, there were
several Zoroasters in different parts of the East ; some of whom appear to be
the same as the later Zeradusht of Hyde and Prideaux, while others are
plainly far anterior, and seem at the bottom to be that compound primeval
character who under various appellations was reverenced as the great univer
sal father. There was a Zoroaster in Assyria, another in Media, another
in Armenia, another in Bactria, and another (according to Hyde himself)
even in China. 1 All these I take to be that one transmigrating ancient person ;
* Suid. Lex. Arnob. adv. gent. lib. i. p. 31. Clem. Altx. Strom, lib. i. p. 399. lib. v. p.
711. Justin, lib. i. c. 1. Synccll. Chronog. p. lG7- Hyde de rel. vet. Pers. p. 315. Huet.
Demons. Evan. prop. iv. p. 89. cited by Bryant.
75
who, by the name of Buddha or Fold or Menu or Mahabad or Saca, was

worshipped so extensively : and the ascribing of them to different countries
imports no more than this; that a hero-god decorated with the attributes of
the great father was every where adored, and that the genealogy of all nations
ultimately terminated in Noah and Adam.
The Armenian Zoroaster was the reputed son of Armenius : and, like Bac
chus, Osiris, and Adonis, he is said to have experienced a renewal of life
and to have learned many, things of the gods during the time that he lay
dead. This is plainly a diluvian fable; and is nothing more than a modifica
tion of the Hindoo legend, that, during the period between two successive
worlds, the great father reposes in a deathlike sleep on the surface of an uni
versal inundation. Armenia was the country where the Ark rested; and the
death and revival of Zoroaster is the mystic death and revival of the great
father : his death, as Adam or the Menu of the antediluvian world, when he
entered into the Ark ; his revival, as Noah or the Menu of the postdiluvian
world, when he quitted it.
Sometimes the egress was esteemed a new birth,
as well as a resurrection from the dead. Hence this Zoroaster is reported to

have been born on one of the Gordiean mountains; that is to say, precisely
in that hilly region, where the Ark grounded, and where Noah was born
from it. He is also feigned to have had an intercourse with the Deity on a
mountain of Armenia, and to have been preserved unhurt though it burned
with fire. This fable originated, agreeably to the double character of the
great father, in part from the manifestation of the Cherubim before the garden
of Eden ; and in part from the sacrifice of Noah, and his conversation with
God revealed in the Shechinah, immediately on his quitting the Ark.
Each
took place in the same mountainous country of Armenia : for, where Zoroas
ter is feigned to have been born and to have held high converse with the
Deity; there Adam was first created, there Paradise once flourished, there
the Ark rested, and there Noah was born a second time from the womb of
the mystic great mother.*
The Bactrian Zoroaster is said to have lived in the time of Ninus, and to
have been a contemporary of Semiramis. This likewise brings us to the
' Abulfeda apud Hyde, p. 313. Dion. Chrysostom. Orat. Borysth. p. 44S. apud Bryant.
76
fan in, diluvian age : for the fabulous Semiramis was supposed to be the daughter of
Derceto or Atargatis or the Syrian goddess, and to have been changed into
a dove ; as her reputed parent, who was no other than the Ark, assumed
the shape of a fish to escape from the rage of Typhon or the diluvian ocean.
The son of Derceto, and therefore the imaginary brother of Semiramis, was
called Icthys or the Fish. He was no doubt the same as Dagon or Noah :
for Icthys is a mere Greek translation of Dagon ; and Dagon is the title,
under which the Philistines or Palli of old venerated the great father, as
their brethren the Chasas or Indo-Scythae of Bokhara and Cashgar and Ava
do at the present day. * Among the latter, Dagun is still an appellation of
Buddha or the sovereign prince in the belly of the fish : and Buddha is thought
to have been born in the very same high region with the Bactrian Zoroaster ;
that region, which, comprehending Bokhara and Cashgar, may be distinguish
ed by the general appellation of the Indian Caucasus. Such are the charac
ters, with whom Zoroaster is made contemporary : nor was it without reason ;
for the land of his pretended nativity is the precise country of mount Meru,
and he himself is the very same character as Buddha or Menu or Dagon.
As for the period, in which the Zoroaster of the Greek writers flourished,
it cannot possibly be reconciled with the reign of Darius Hystaspis. Xanthus
the Lydian makes him six hundred years prior to that prince. Suidas, on'the
authority of an anonymous writer, places him five centuries before the siege
of Troy. Hermodorus, Hermippus, and Plutarch, concur in fixing him no
less than five thousand years before the same era. Eudoxus supposes him
to have lived six thousand years before the death of Plato. Pliny ascribes
to him an antiquity many thousand years higher than that of Moses ; and re
presents him, from Hermippus, as being the pupil of Azonac, who makes a
conspicuous figure in the Chaldean oracles, and who like Zoroaster himself
is the great father. He moreover tells us, that he laughed on the day of his
nativity ; a fable, which exactly corresponds with the Samothracian tradition
of the laughter of the new-born Jupiter. Lastly, Plato supposes him to be
> Luc. de dea Syra. sect. 14. Artemid. Oniroc. lib. i. c. 9- Euseb. Prep. Evan. lib. i.
e. 10. Glyc. Annal. p. 184. Ovid. Metam. lib. iv. ver. 44. Athenag. Legat. p. 33. Athen.
Deipnos. lib. viii. p. 346. Dissert, on Cabiri. vol. i. p. 8587. Symes's Embass. to Ava.
-vA. ii. p. 110.
77
the son of Ormuzd, the highest god of the Persians ; who in the Zend-Avesta
undoubtedly appears as the Supreme Being, but who (I believe) was really
no other than the great father clothed with the attributes of Deity. 1
These varying accounts, while they concur in proving that a primitive
Zoroaster ought to be placed in a most remote age, plainly shew, that such
a character as that which they describe could not have lived in the reign of
Darius Hystaspis ; for, if there had been only a single Zeradusht (as Hyde
and Prideaux contend) and he a contemporary of Darius, it is incredible that
the western writers should have made such enormous chronological blunders
respecting him ; they must have known, that both he and his religion were
comparatively modern. In fact, the primeval Zoroaster, who (I am per
suaded) was the same as Buddha or Menu, lived in an age or (to speak more
properly) in ages, to which the traditions indeed of the Gentiles extended,
though not their regular chronological history. He lived, for he was a com
pound character, in the Paradisiacal and diluvian ages : and, like Buddha or
Menu, was in the first instance Adam reappearing in the person of Noah ;
though, agreeably to the notion of every eminent patriarch or reformer being
an intermediate manifestation of the great father, he may also be in some sort
identified both with Ham and with Cush, the ancestors of all the Gothic or
Scuthic tribes. Thus Cassian very reasonably thinks, that he was Ham ;
and Annius of Viterbo makes bis false Berosus assert the same : while Gre
gory of Tours supposes him to have been Cush..* Indeed some such opinion
must necessarily result from his being ascribed to so very remote a period :
and the manner, in which I have stated it, best accords with the doctrines
that prevailed so extensively throughout the pagan world ; Zoroaster was, in
one word, the Buddha or Menu of the Chusas of Iran.
It is a curious circumstance, that the ancient Irish should also have had a
Zeradusht, and that both they and the Persians (who in this instance seem
1 Diog. Laer. in prooem.. p. 3. Suid. Lex. Plin. Nat. Hist. lib. vii. c. l6. lib. xxx. c. 1.
Plut. de Isid. et Osir. p. 369. Plat, in Alcib. lib. i. p. 122; Mos. Choren. p. 16, 47. Euscb. Chron. p. 32. Syncell. Chronog. p. 167. apud Bryant. Ptol.Heph. Nov. Hist. lib. vii.
Dissert, on Cabiri. vol. ii. p. 153 1 58.
* Cassian. Collat. c. 21. apud VaUancey. Beios. Ant. lib. ii. fol. 25. Greg. Turon. Eer.
Franc, lib. i. apud Bryant.
c*Ar'
73
to have confounded together, the primitive and the later Zeradusht) should
have designated his mother by the name of Doghdu or Daghda.' The
close resemblance between the religion of Persia and that of the British
isles was observed by Borlase ; and the complete identity of the old super
stitions of the Druids, the Magi, and the Brahmens, has, been since sa
tisfactorily established by Vallancey, Wilford, Maurice, and Davies : so that
the appearance of this mythological character in Ireland may be accounted
for without much difficulty. Doghdu or Daghda or Dag-Deva signifies
thefish-goddess. This fabulous personage, the allegorical consort of Dagon
or Buddha in one point of view and his parent in another, is certainly the
Ark : whence Buddha, whom I contend to be the same as Zoroaster, and
who bears the masculine title of Dagon or Dagun, is sometimes styled the
sovereign prince of the belli/ of the fish. Among the Syrians she appears
as the fish-goddess Derceto or Atargatis ; who was esteemed the universal
receptacle or hiding-place of the hero-gods, who was the reputed parent of
the dove Semiramis and the fish-god Icthys or Dagon, who was thence said
to be contemporary with the primeval Zoroaster, and who is evidently the
watery goddess Deargand Durga of the ancient Irish and Hindoos. In the
old Celtic mythology of Ireland, the children of this Zeradusht were called
Mithr or Midhr ; an appellation palpably the same as the title of the Per
sian Mithras, who was reported to have triplicated himself. The offspring
therefore of Zeradusht was Mithras triplicated ; as Mithras in unity was
Zeradusht viewed separately from his children : and this self-triplication,
which equally occurs in the mythology of Hindostan and indeed of every other
ancient nation, means only, that the greatfather, whether Adam or Noah, was
the parent of three sons, with whom each similar successive world invariably
commenced. *
' Vallancey's Vindic. of anc. hist, of Ireland. Collect, de reb. Hibern. vol. iv. p. 197.
198. Hyde de rel. vet. Pers. p. 312.
* Gen. Vallancey says, that the Irish have preserved and ascribe to their Zeradusht the
very prophecy respecting the advent of the Messiah, which Abulpharagius attributes to the
Persian Zeradusht. As it is difficult to conceive how this could have been a forgery of the
monks in the middle ages, we seem obliged to conclude, either that the prophecy was really
contained in some more ancient Zend-Avesta, or that an emigration to Ireland took place
79
But though the classical writers justly ascribe the Magianism of Persia to CUAP-,,J'
a very ancient Zoroaster, long anterior to the time of Darius Hystaspis ; for
Aristotle places Zoroaster as long before Plato as Eudoxus does, and tells us
(very truly, I believe) that the Magi of Persia were prior even to the Egyp
tians : 1 they were not ignorant of the existence of a later Zoroaster, who is
certainly the Zeradusht of Hyde, Prideaux, and Sir William Jones, and
who seems to have flourished during the reigns of Darius and his son Xerxes.
Thus Pliny ascribes a Zoroaster to the age of the latter of these princes; and
therefore of course distinguishes him from that primeval Zoroaster, whom he
himself places many thousand years before the days of Moses : thus Clemens
Alexandrinus mentions a Persian Zoroaster, who was visited by Pythagoras:
and thus Agathias speaks of a Zoroaster, who lived in the time of Hystaspes, though he confesses himself unable to ascertain who this person was. 1
All these seem plainly to be that Zeradusht, who reformed the Magianism
of Hushang as he had reformed that of his predecessors, and who was pro
bably the compiler and editor of the work whence the present Zend-Avesta
has been taken. But, when I consider the texture of the early history con
tained in it, I can no more persuade myself either that he was the inventor
of it or that he stole it from the Pentateuch, than I can believe that the
beginning of the Metamorphoses was the sole and original production of
Ovid or that Tzetzes was the author of the fables contained in the scholia on
Lycophron.
J 1 1. I may now proceed to offer a few observations on the curious legend,
which has produced this long discussion, and which from the internal evi
dence afforded by it I suppose to be a genuine relic of ancient eastern my
thology new modelled and corrected by -the later Zeradusht and his successors.
Such observations therefore will be made with a special eye to the Penta
teuch ; in order that it may thus clearly appear, that the materials of the
subsequent to the time of Darius Hystaspis. Vind. in Collect, de reb. Hib. vol. iv. p. 196,
200, 201.
* Huet. Demons. Evan. prop. iv. p. 88, 89. Diog. Laer. in prooem. p. 6.
1 PHn. Nat. Hist. lib. xxx. c. 1. Clem. Alex. Strom, lib. i. p. 357. Agath. de Pers. lib.
ii. p. 62. apud Bryant.
80
Zend-Avestaic mythology could not have been borrowed from the sacred
volume during the period of the Babylonian captivity.
1. The Dabistan of Mohsan leads us to conclude, that the early supersti
tion of the Iranian Magi was substantially the same as that of the Indian
Brahmens : and, accordingly, we find a very close resemblance between the
theology of the Zend-Avesta and that of the Puranas. Several points of this
resemblance have already been incidentally noticed ; and others, as weadvance
in the inquiry, will continue to present themselves to our view.
From the sacred records of Hindostan we learn, that, at the beginning of
the world, numerous celestial spirits wereformed capable of perfection, but
with the powers of imperfection, both depending on their voluntary choice ;
that a considerable part of the angelic bands rebelled; that they were cast,
together with Mahasoor their leader, into Onderah or the abyss of intense
darkness ; and that there they continuedfor an immense period in penal tor
ments. Here the Mahasoor of the Brahmens is evidently the Ahriman of
the Zend-Avesta : and the Onderah and the Dewtahs of the former are no
less evidently the Douzakh and the Dews of the latter. The resemblance is
too close to be accidental : yet, from whatever source the compiler of the
Zend-Avesta might borrow such a tenet, he certainly could not have received
it from the Pentateuch. We may indeed, from the Mosaical history of the
fall, covertly gather the existence of a malignant and evil spirit: but we
have no account of the manner, in which he deflected from his original pu
rity ; nor is the least mention made, either of his daring associates, or of
any place of torment to which they were consigned.
. In the Zend-Avesta, the first man-bull Key-Umursh is clearly Adam:
and the second man-bull Taschter, who appears at the time of the deluge,
can only be Noah. Of these, the latter was deemed a transmigratory re
vival of tlie former. For the title Key-Umursh, which in the Sanscrit de
notes the great lord of the World, is, throughout the legends of Persia, in
differently applied both to Noah and to Adam. Hence it will follow, that
Taschter was viewed as a reappearance of the primeval Key-Umursh.1
The whole ot this perfectly accords with the general tenon of old mytho1 Asiat. Res. vol. vi. p. 530. vol. ii. p. 6l.
81
logy ; in which the second great father was esteemed a transmigratory manifestation of the first, and in which the symbol of a bull or a man- bull was
invariably used to represent that ancient personage. But we find no traces
of any such speculations or practices in the Pentateuch : the naked history
of Adam and Noah is there soberly and literally detailed, without the least
hint being given us either of the doctrine of the Metempsychosis or of the use
of any tauric symbol being employed to shadow out those two patriarchs.
Hence again the compiler of the Zend-Avesta could not have been indebted
to Moses for his materials.
5. While the Zend-Avesta gives a very full account of the flood, it may
seem not a little extraordinary, that no direct mention should be made in
it either of the Ark or of the preservation of the second man-bull. Such
however is doubtless the case : yet, notwithstanding this apparent deficiency,
the ship of the deluge is by no means passed over in silence ; it is noticed
obscurely and symbolically, if not ostensibly and literally.
When mount Albordi appears above the boundless inundation, the waters
are said to retire from the Arg-Roud. If then the waters retired from the
Arg-Roud, when the summit of Albordi began to emerge from the flood,
the Arg-Roud must necessarily have been something on the top of Albordi..
But Albordi is evidently the scriptural Ararat; because each is similarly re
presented as rising out of the waters of the deluge. The Arg-Roud there
fore on the top of Albordi can only be the Ark on the top of Ararat. Now
with such a conclusion its name exactly accords. The word Arg-Rad, or
(as M. Perron expresses it) Arg-Roud, is a Persic compound ; of which the
first syllable is the familiar appellation of the sacred ship Argha or Argo,
while the second denotes a Magus or Druid. Hence the name Arg-Rad is
equivalent to the Argha of the Magus: and by the Magus we are obviously
to understand the primeval Zeradusht, or Noah in his fabled character of
the first Archimage.1
This part of the legend therefore, when analysed,
coincides indeed minutely with the narrative of Moses ; hut could not have
been directly borrowed from it. Consequently, the editor of the ZendAvesta must have received it from some other source : and that other source
* Vallancey's Vind. Collect, de reb. Hib. vol. iv. p. 198.
Pag, Idol.
vol. ii.
'"'
TIJE OHICJN OF PAGAN IDOLATRY.

ook in. can on|y have been the old theological system of his country, which was
the same as the general theological system of Paganism in every part of the
world.
The same remark will apply w ith yet greater force to the symbolical man
ner, in which the Ark is covertly pointed out by that writer in the accre
dited phraseology of the ancient Mysteries. We are told, that the seed or
offspring of the second man-bull was, during the prevalence of the flood,
purified in the Moon; and that from it every thing postdiluvian afterwards
proceeded. Now in the Pentateuch there is nothing that at all resembles
this extraordinary fable : yet the history, whether told by Moses or by Zeradusht, is fundamentally the same. The Moon, exhibiting as it does the
form of a boat during its first and last quarters, was universally adopted by
the Gentiles as the astronomical type of the Ark : and the confinement of
the Noetic family within this floating Moon was viewed in the light of a pe
nance, which effected the purification of the temporary prisoners.
4. The name, which the mountain of the Arg-Roud bears in the ZendAvesta, is Albordi. Here again we have a proof, that at least the materials,
out of which that work has been compiled, were ancient and original pagan
documents. The peak of the Ark is by Moses styled Ararat j a word,
which bears not the least .resemblance to Albordi. Hence it is clear, that
the Zend-Avestaic appellation of the sacred hill has not been taken from the
Pentateuch. Yet it is sufficiently easy to discover the source, whence it
has been received : and that source is real Paganism. The old mythological
names, bestowed upon the Armenian hill where the Ark was believed to
have grounded, were Baris, Luban, and Lubar. Of these, the last seems
to be a compound of the other two : and, if it be somewhat more fully ex
pressed Labard or Albard, we shall have the precise appellation of the holy
Persic mount Albordi. The import of the word, as I have elsewhere had
occasion to observe, is the Ship of the Moon : but the Moon, of which the
diluvian peak Albordi was one of the many sacred mountains or high places,
is that very symbolical Moon, within which the offspring of the second manbull is feigned to have been purified at the time of the deluge, and from
which all things were subsequently produced.
5. We learn from the Dabistan, that in the old Iranian theology the uni
THE ORIGIN- OF PAGAN IDOLATRY.
83
ersal father was called Maha-Bad or the great Buddha : and what we are
thus taught by Mohsan perfectly accords with the legend contained in the
Zend-Avesta.
The sacred bull, which was animated by the soul of the first man-bull
Key-Umursh just as the Egyptian Apis was supposed to be animated by the
soul of Osiris, is said to have been called Aboudad. This I take to be the
compound appellation Ab-Boud-Tat, which signifies father Buddha-Tat:
for Boud is but one of the many various modes of writing Buddha ; and
Tat or Taut or Teut is a name of this deity equally familiar to the Hindoos,
the Phenicians, the Egyptians, the Celts, and the Goths.
The early worship therefore of Iran, according to the Zend-Avesta, was
the worship of Buddha or Tat under the form of a bull compounded with
the human form of the great universal father. But neither such names, nor
such notions, nor such an application of the tauric symbol, could have been
boirowed from the Pentateuch.. .
6. At the time of the deluge, Aboudad reappears in the character of
the second man-bull Taschter, precisely as the tauric Menu-Swayambhuva of Hindostan reappears in the character of the tauric Menu-Satyavrata. The Zend-Avesta describes this transmigrating personage, as hav
ing three combined bodies ; that of a man, that of a bull, and that of a
horse : and represents him, as attended by three inferior associates who were
jointly employed with himself in bringing on the catastrophe of the deluge.
Here the legend partially agrees, and partially disagrees, with the Penta
teuch. The three associates of Taschter are manifestly the three sons of
Noah: but, to acquire the knowledge of such a triad, the compiler of the
Zend-Avesta had no occasion to consult the writings of Moses. Three prin
cipal demon-gods, the offspring of a yet older demon-god, were venerated
in almost every system of pagan theology : and, that the fable before us
was borrowed from this universal veneration of a triad and not from the diluvian history contained in the Pentateuch, may safely be inferred from that
part of it which bears not the least resemblance to the simple narrative of
the inspired penman. As Taschter is literally said to have been attended by
three companions : so, when the same idea was expressed symbolically, he is
feigned -to have been a monster uniting three bodies in a single form.
Now
84
THE ORIGIN OF PAGAN IDOLATttr.
book nu i.ucjj a composition produces the exact figure of the Centaur, the equine manbull of classical superstition : for this hieroglyphical being had the head,
shoulders, and arms, of a man ; the body of a horse ; and the tail and clo
ven feet of a bull.1 By some he was thought to be Chiron, the son of Sa
turn: but, according to Lycophron, he was Saturn himself; that is to say,
he was Noah.* Between these two opinions however there is no real differ
ence : for Saturn and Chiron, though described as father and son, are in
reality one and the same personage viewed under somewhat different aspects.
On the sphere, the Centaur appears issuing from the ship Argo and bearing
a victim towards an altar : while the dove, the raven, and the great sea-ser
pent, are in his immediate vicinity. Such a group, when we recollect the
Cuthic or Babylonic origin of the constellations as depicted on the celestial
globe, certainly represents, to adopt the phraseology of the Zend-Avesta, the
equine man-bull Taschter issuing from the Arg-Roud as it rested on the
summit of Albordi.
7. There is one more particular in the early history of the Zend-Avesta ;
which deserves our attention, as alike connecting it w ith old mythology, and
as shewing that the materials of which it is composed could not have been
borrowed from Scripture : Taschter, though he existed upon earth, is yet
spoken of both as the Sun and as a Star.
(I.) In the theology of the Gentiles, all those deities, whose history
proves them to be in their human capacity the great father, were yet in their
celestial character venerated as being the Sun.
Of this twofold nature,
accordingly, Taschter is represented as partaking : he is at once Noah and

the orb of day.
(2.) But he is moreover said to be a Star : and his light is spoken of as
shining on high during thirty days and thirty nights, while the waters of the
deluge were increasing. This notion of a Star appearing at the epoch of the
flood is not confined to the early history of the Zend-Avesta. Sanchoniatho
1 The licence of painters is apt 10 lose sight of the tauric part of the Centaur, though it it
so clearly insinuated in the very name of the symbol, and to delineate nothing more than a
man united to a fiery horse : but the true form is accurately exhibited in the print illustrative
of Hygin. Poet. Astron. lib. iii. C. 37.
* Lycoph. Canon, vti. J200 1203. KfwavfOf, ww 6 Kfow;. Tzeu. in loc.
83
tells us, that, while Astarte or the great arkite mother, whose womb compre- C,,AP,
bended all the hero-gods, was rambling about the world ; she found a Star
falling from the sky, which she afterwards consecrated at Tyre: Pliny men
tions an old tradition of a comet having appeared during the reign of Typhon,
that is to say, during the prevalence of the diluvian ocean, the effects of
which were extremely tremendous : Hyginus informs us, that, when Phaethon,
the son of Apollo, had set the whole world on fire by mismanaging the cha
riot of his father; Jupiter, to quench the flames, caused a general inunda
tion, from which Pyrrha and Deucalion alone escaped in an ark : and from
the ancient mythological writers we learn, that there were originally seven
stars in the constellation of the Pleiades ; but that one of them, Electra the
mother of Dardanus, who was reported to have been saved from a deluge
both in Arcadia and Samothrace, suddenly quitted her station in the heavens,
and wandering about with dishevelled hair became a comet. 1 Now there is
nothing set forth in the narrative of Moses to warrant the opinion, that some
unusual Star became visible at the time of the deluge ; but it was very pre
valent, we see, in the gentile world : from primitive gentile tradition there
fore must Zeradusht have borrowed the Star of Taschter.*
I think it probable, that this diluvian Star of Taschter, Astarte, Typhon,
and Dardanus, was the Star of Moloch or Remphan mentioned by the prophet
Amos and the protomartyr Stephen.' The compound word Remphan or
* Sanchon. apud Euseb. Praep. Evan. lib. i. e. 10. Plin. Nat. Hist. lib. ii. c. 25. Hyg.
Fab. 152, 192. Serv. in Virg. Georg. lib. i. ver. 138. Dionys. Halic. Ant. Rom. lib. i. c.
01. Tzetz. in Lycoph. ver. 29- It may be observed, that, according to Hyginus, Electra
became a comet on account of her grief for the loss of her son Dardanus ; and, according to
Servius, on account of his death. His loss, and his death mean the same as the fabled
aphanism of Osiris ; that is to say, the inclosure of Noah within the Ark, which was his
allegorical loss or death. The Hindoos, like the Greeks, suppose the Pleiades to have been
once seven in number: for they make them to be the sidereal representatives of the wives of
the seven arkite Rishis. Asiat. Res. vol. ix. p. 85.
1 My old friend and schoolfellow, Mr. Hoyle, ventures, in his fine poem of Exodus, to
make Moses himself speak of a comet, as being one of the causes of the deluge. This is
perfectly allowable in poetry, and the circumstance was probably a real matter of fact : but
the Pentateuch is silent on the subject. See Hoyle's Exodus, book vi. ver. 627<>45.
3 Amos v. 26. Act* vii. 43.
86
THE ORIGIN- OF PAGAN IDOLATRY.
book in. Ram-Phan may either signify the lofty Thanes, or may possibly be the name
of the Indo-Scythic Rama united with that of Phanes or Pan.
This deity
is rightly judged by Selden and Beyer, either to be the same as Saturn, or to

be immediately connected with him under the appellation of Chiun. 1 He is
doubtless, I think, that great Pan or Mendes, whom the Egyptians reckon
ed the most ancient of the gods, and whom they placed at the head of their
famous ogdoad of navicular deities : and Pan is the same as Phanes or Dionusus, whom the Orphic poet makes one of his primeval triad. He is cer
tainly the same also as Moloch, with whom he is associated : and Moloch
again identifies himself with the Centaur Cronus or Taschter. According to
Rabbi Simeon as cited by Paul Fagius, his face was that of a calf. 1 He
seems, in fact, like Taschter and the Minotaur, to have been a figure com
pounded of a man and a bull ; for, whether a human face and body was at
tached to the body of a bull or the head of a bull to a human body, the
hieroglyphic is in each case radically the same : we may pronounce him
therefore to be the man-bull of the Canaanites. The Star of Castor and
Pollux is nearly allied to that of Taschter and Remphan. They were styled
Dioscori, which is a title of the Cabiri : and, as the whole history of the
great gods of Samothrace and Phenicia refers them to the deluge,, so the
Star of the Dioscori was esteemed peculiarly auspicious to mariners. The
origin of the notion is sufficiently obvious : in the midst of a tempest which
overwhelmed a whole world, the real or simulated Star of Noah shone with
no baleful lustre on the favoured ship which preserved himself and his family.
It may not be improper to notice, at the close of these remarks, the period,
which the author of the Zend-Avesta ascribes to the increase of the waters
and to the malignant influence of the Star of Taschter. Moses simply in
forms us, that rain was upon the face of the earth forty days and forty nights. 1
Now, if the fabulous history of the Zend-Avesta were a mere servile trans
cript of the Pentateuch, I see no reason, why the compiler should not have
expressed himself precisely in the same manner as his supposed prototype.
But such is not the case : while he curiously preserves the sum total of forty
' Seld. de diis Syr. synt. ii. c. 14. Beyer. Addit. m loc.
1 Seld. de diis Syr. synt. i. c. 6.
1 Gen. vii. 12.
87
days, he tells his story in such a manner as to shew that it must have CHAP. n,
been derived from
a totally different source.
During thirty days and
thirty nights, the sidereal light of Taschter shone on high over a perishing
world : and, during the space of ten additional days, he caused incessant
rain to descend from under each of his three bodies. Here we have indeed
the complete forty days : but the mode of specifying them can never have
been borrowed from the Jewish lawgiver.
8. The internal evidence, which has been produced, may now perhaps
enable us to judge, whether we must not necessarily conclude, that the ma
terials (I argue only for the materials), out of which the early history of
the Zend-Avesta has been compiled, are genuine relics of ancient mythology.
The commencement of the book of Genesis it resembles in nothing but its
grand outline : while every part of it teems with the notions common to the
old mythologists in all parts of the world. Such notions the later Zeradusht
could not have borrowed from the plain narrative of Moses : and their re
markable coincidence with the theological speculations of Paganism forbids
the incredible supposition, that they were the novel productions of his own
inventive brain. Whatever particulars therefore may have been transferred
into the present Zend-Avesta from the Hebrew Scriptures, the materials,
out of which its early history has been framed, must unavoidably be esteemed
fragments of primeval symbolizing tradition.
If this opinion be well founded, and I see no reason to doubt it, I need"
scarcely observe, what a strong attestation we have to the veracity of the an
tediluvian and diluvian history of Moses.
IV. After these remarks on the Zend-Avesta, I may be allowed to adduce
two prayers of the Parsees : the one addressed to the Moon ; the other, to
the sacred Bull. They exhibit in strong colours the nature of their worship;
and shew with sufficient clearness, that the Moon which they adored was not
solely and exclusively the planet, but that it was the planet considered as the
astronomical symbol of that vessel in which were preserved the rudiments of
a future world.
1. The first prayer is an invocation of the Moon.
I adore Ormuzd; I adore the Amschaspands ; I adore the Moon, which
preserves the seed of the Bull: I adore, looking on high ; I adore, looking
88
ook m. fo/oa;,

May the Moon be favourable to me : she, who preseroeth the seed
of the Bull ; she, who hath been created the only one of her kind; she,
from whom proceeded animals of various descriptions. I make to her
izeschne* and neaesch.
I adore Ormuzd ; I adore the Amschaspands ; I adore the Moon, which
preserves the seed of the Bull ; I adore, looking on high ; I adore, looking
below. As the Moon increases, so she likewise decreases : during fifteen
days she increases; during fifteen days she decreases. When she increases,
we ought to adore her ; when she decreases, we ought to adore her : but,
above all, when she increases, it is our especial duty to adore her. O Moon,
who increasest and wanest ; thou Moon, who preservest the seed of the Bull;
thou, who art holy, pure, and great ; I make to thee izeschne.
I regard that Moon on high : I honour that Moon, which is elevated :
I regard on high the light of the Moon : I honour the light of the Moon,
which is elevated.
When the light of the Moon diffuses heat, she causes trees to grow of the
colour of gold: she multiplies the verdure upon the earth with the new
Moon : with the full Moon come all productions.
X make izeschne* to the new Moon, holy, pure, and great : I make izeschne
to the full Moon, holy, pure, and 'great : I make izeschni to the Moon,
which caused every thing to be born, holy, pure, and great.
I invoke the Moon, which preserves the seed of the Bull: I adore, looking
on high ; I adore, looking below.1
2. The second prayer is addressed to the sacred Bull \ but its form is man
datory.
Address your prayer to the excellent Bull : address your prayer to the
pure Bull: address your prayer to those principles of all good: address
your prayer to the rain, the source of plenty : address your prayer to the
Bull, become pure, celestial, holy ; who has never been engendered, who is
holy.
When Dje ravages the world, when the impure Aschmogh weakens man
who is devoted to him, the water spreads itself on high ; it descends in
* Pttroli's Zend-Avesta, vol. iii. p. 17. spud Bryant.
THE OLUGHN OF PAGAN IDOLATRY.

abundance ; that water dissolves into a thousand, into ten thousand showers
of rain. I tell you, O pure Zoroaster, Let envy, let death, be upon the
earth : still the water smites envy, which is upon the earth ; still it smites
death, which is upon the earth.
Let the Dew Dje multiply himself: if it
be at sun-rise that he desolates the world, still the rain places every thing in
order again when the day is pure ; if it be in the night that Dje desolates
the world, still the rain reestablishes every thing to Oshen. It Jails in
abundance : then the water renews itself, the earth renews itself; the trees
renew themselves, health renews itself; he, who gives health, renews him
self.
When the water spreads itself in the river Voorokesche, it raises itself,
and mires the grams with the earth and the earth with the grains.
The water, xohich raises itself, is the means of abundance : the grains given
by Ormuzd spring up and are multiplied. The Sun, like a vigorous courser,
darts with majestyfrom the summit of the terrible Albordi, and gives light
to the world. From that mountain which he possesses, a mountain given by
Ormuzd, he rules over the world: this is the way to the two destinies, above
the grains given in abundance and above the water. Whether it be before
you have done the evil, or before you have read the excellent word, I cause
every thing to spring up for you in abundance ; I, who then wash you with
water. By water Ipurify a thousand things, which I have given to you.
When the water spreads itself in the river Voorokeschk, part of it raises
itself, which falling in rain mixes the grains with the earth and the earth
with the grains. The water, which raises itself, is the means of abundance.
Every thing increases, every thing multiplies itself, upon the earth given by
Ormuzd. The Moon, the depository of the seed of the Bull, darts with
majesty from the summit of the terrible Albordi, and gives light to the
. world. From that mountain which she possesses, a mountain given by
Ormuzd, she rules over the world : this is the way to the two destinies,
above thegrains given in abundance and upon the water.
When the water spreads itself in the river Voorokeschb, part of it raises
itself, whichfalling in rain mixes the grains xoith the earth and the earth
with the grains. The water, which raises itself, is the means of abundance.
The cruel Dje, master of the magic art, raises himself imperiously; he
Pag. Idol.
vol. ii.

wishes to exercise his violence.
But the rain drives away Aschere, drives
away Eghouere, drives away Eghranm, drives away envy, drives away
death. It drives away the serpent, drives away falsehood: it drives away
the wickedness, corruption, and impurity, xihich Ahriman has produced in
the bodies of men. 1
V. These prayers, wild as they appear, are evidently constructed on that
early history of the Zend-Avesta, which I have recently discussed. Hence
it is manifest, that the persons, who used them, received that history as the
acknowledged basis of their popular theology. This circumstance therefore
affords another proof, that the materials at least of the history are genuine
relics of pagan antiquity. We find the notions, which distinguish it, enter
ing into the forms of public worship: which we can scarcely suppose would
have been the case, had the whole from beginning to end been a novel figment
of the later Zeradusht, differing altogether from the mythological speculations
of his predecessors. But, that the history does not differ from such specu
lations, may be safely inferred from the striking resemblance which it bears
to the peculiar notions prevalent throughout the whole pagan world. The
very ideas, which characterize the theologies of Egypt, Hindostan, Phenicia,
Asia Minor, Greece, Italy, and Britain, may be clearly recognized in the
Zend-Avesta and in the prayers formed upon its early history.
1. The Moon, that preserves and purifies the seed or offspring of the
second man-bull, while the waters of the deluge cleanse the earth from the
abominations introduced by the serpent Ahriman ; the Moon, that is invoked
as the great universal mother, as the fruitful parent of all animals, as the
holy birth-place of every postdiluvian production : that Moon, which pre
cisely corresponds with the Moon celebrated by the Hindoos and Egyptians,
as the mother of the World, and as the receptacle of him who was preserved
in an Ark during the period of a general flood : that Moon, I say, must
plainly possess a character, superadded to its proper literal character of one
of the great lights of heaven. If the second man-bull, who flourished at the
time of the deluge, and who is described as having three inferior companions,
be the patriarch Noah : the Moon, which preserved his offspring while the
* Zend-Avesta, vol. ii. p. 424. apud Bryant.
91
waters covered the earth, and which subsequently became the parent both CUA,'-,,'.
of the animal and vegetable creation, must inevitably be the Ark ; which the
old mythologists, in every part of the world, venerated under the astronomi
cal symbol of the navicular crescent.
As the Ark is thus typified by the Moon ; so likewise Noah or the second
man-bull, in exact accordance with the theological systems of other nations,
is celebrated in the Zend-Avesta as being the Sun : for that very person, who
astronomically is the bright orb of day, is yet, when assisted by three subor
dinate persons and himself assuming three forms upon earth, declared to
have been the delegated human agent that produced the deluge.
With these Sabian speculations, which extended themselves from Babel to
every quarter of the earth, the two prayers now under consideration perfectly
agree In the former of them, we are explicitly taught, that the Moon,
which was the object of Persic veneration, was both of a celestial and of a
terrestrial nature.
/ adore the Moon, 6ays the devout votary, looking up
to heaven on high ; I adore the Moon, looking down to Ike earth belowIn the latter of them, both the Sun and the Moon are represented as pro
ceeding from the summit of mount Albordi, and as thence ruling the whole
world. But this can only be true of Noah, and of the Ark : of Noah, the
giver of health or (according to the parallel mythology of Hindostan) the
great regenerative physician, who with all nature renewed himself after the
deluge ; of the Ark, in which his offspring was preserved and purified during
the prevalence of the waters, and from which it was believed to be born again
into a new and more holy state of existence.
For mount Albordi, the gift
of Ormuzd and the favourite seat of universal dominion to the mystic Sun
and Moon, was the first land which appeared above the retiring deluge,
when the waters retreated on all sides from the Arg-Roud or from the Argha
of the Magus Zeradusht.
And the primitive Zeradusht, as we fiave seen,
was himself, no less than the second man-bull Taschter, the patriarch Noah
considered as a reappearance of Adam or the first man-bull Key-Umursh
Aboudad. Hence, we may observe, the prayer of the aspirant is addressed,
not only to the pure Bull, but likewise to the pure Zoroaster. *
1 M. Perron uses the word Zoroastre, which I have accordingly translated Zoroaster :
but, whether he substitutes the classical appellation for the oriental Zeradusht, or whether
THE ORIGIN CF PAGAN IDOLATRY.
92
By the use of such a key, which is equally afforded by the Zend-Avesta

itself and by other concurring mythological systems, the two prayers are
sufficiently intelligible, though partly obscured by a sore of mystic jargon.
The whole context of them, particularly when viewed in connection with the
legendary history itself which furnishes the best explanation of their mean
ing, decidedly proves them to have a diluvian reference, mixed however,
like the history, with an allusion to the fall of man and to the gross wicked
ness which w as the procuring cause of the flood.
The Amschaspands, who are invoked along with Ormuzd and the Moon,
were thought to be seven primitive celestial spirits. 1 Their number, joined
to the general context of the prayers and of the history, points out very
unequivocally what persons are intended by them.
They are palpably the
same as the seven inferior Rishis of Hindostan, who were saved with the
head of their family in an ark ; the same as the seven ancient personages,
who alone returned with the British just man Hu from the dale of the grievous
waters, when he navigated an ocean without shore in the mystic ship which
was a form of the great mother Ceridwen; the same as the seven Heliadae,
whose father Helias or the Sun once crossed the sea in a golden cup, and
who was represented by the Egyptians sailing in a boat ; the same as the
seven Titans, who were the children of the older Titan, Cronus or Saturn or
Noah ; 1 the same as the seven Corybantes, who were the offspring of Corybas by the nymph Theba or the Ark ; and the same as the seven Phenician
Cabiri, who were the sons of Sydyk or the just man, who were thought to
have built the first ship, and who consecrated the relics of the ocean to Nep
tune at Berytus.
They are the same likewise as the seven primeval celestial
spirits of the Japanese : and, to return to the Zend-Avesta, they are the same
also as those Karfesters, who are described as escaping from the deluge and
as commencing the parents of a new race on the summit of mount AlbordL
For, as Cronus and the seven Titans were exempted from the general dethe very name Zoroaster here occurs in the original, I have no means of positively ascertaining.
I suspect however the former to be the case, as I am assured that the name Zoroaster is wholly
unknown to the Persians.
.
1 Les sept premieres esprits celestes.
* The Orphic poet addresses Cronus by the appellation of a\Htpt Tirar.
Hymn. xii.
93
struction which befell all the other Titans

so, in the Zend-Avesta, amidst
the general destruction of the impious Karfesters by the waters of the deluge,
some of the same race were nevertheless preserved on the top of mount
Albordi to be the principles of the renovated world. Accordingly, while the
Orphic poet, in allusion to the submersion of the first race of mortals, places
the Titans as a body beneath the earth in the deep recesses of Tartarus ; he
yet speaks of them as the ancestors and the primordial fountains both of men,
of fishes, of birds, and of beasts : from you, says he, originates every ge
neration throughout the Universe. 1
Like the preserved Karfesters, they
were the germina whence the new world proceeded : and we may equally
trace the Noetic ogdoad in the seven Titans with their parent the hippocentaur Cronus at their head, and in the seven Amschaspands with the hippocentaur Taschter at their head ; for, as Taschter is the equine man-bull of
Persia, so Cronus is the equine man-bull of classical mythology.
2. The imagery however of the second prayer is more literally diluvkn
than that of the first, which throughout is highly symbolical.
(1.) While the aspirant celebrates the cleansing and fructifying powers of
rain in general; it is easy to see, what particular rain is the real burden of
his song. Supplications are to be addressed to the pure Bull and to rain, as
the principles of all good. Though the evil one may ravage the world, and
bring destruction upon man so unhappily devoted to him i yet, when the
diluvian tempest of desolation is abated, when the day is again serene; the
rain replaces every thing in right order. As we may learn by comparing the
prayer with the history, water, in exact accordance with the mythological
notions both of Hindostan and Britain, is not only the instrument of ruin,
but likewise the agent employed for the purification and regeneration of a
corrupted world. The same idea is afterwards expressed in the prayer with
greater clearness and more pointed application. The evil principle furiously
goes forth to the work of destruction : but the rain chases away all his adhe
rents ; puts to flight the great serpent ; and washes out those stains of false
hood, vice, and impurity, with which the bodies of men had been infested
by the machinations of Ahriman.
' Sec my Dissert, on the Cabiri. chap. ix.
* Orph. Hymn. xxx*i.

(2.) This se rpent is said to be the form, which Ahriman assumed in order
to poison the first man-bull : from its influence likewise the deluge is repre
sented as proceeding.
Here then we are unequivocally and unreservedly informed, what I have
already intimated to be the case, that the Gentiles symbolized the flood by a
vast serpent, because they believed it to have originated from the evil princi
ple.1 The serpent Ahriman, existing in the water (to use the remarkable
phraseology of the Zend-Avesta), and thence producing the deluge, is clearly
the same two-fold mythological character as the Egyptian Tvphon.the
Greek Python, the Indian Vasookee, and the huge Gothic water-snake of
Midgard. Plutarch rightly tells us, that the dragon Typhon was a personi
fication of the ocean ; and, that he represented the ocean at the precise time
of the flood, is evident from his being the agent, who compelled Osiris to
enter into the ark and Horus or the renovated Osiris to take refuge in the
sacred floating island. But he did not typify the ocean simply and exclusively :
he was distinguished also, like Ahriman, by the characteristic marks of the
evil principle. Hence the Egyptians and the Persians equally viewed the sea
with abhorrence, and were peculiarly unwilling to trust themselves on its'
waters ; though it was highly venerated by both as a powerful divinity, and
though by the mystic theocrasia which is so prominent a feature of ancient
Paganism it was often esteemed one of the material forms of the great father.
(3.) As we proceed in our inquiry, additional light will be thrown on the
character of the serpent.
Ormuzd the just judge said to Neriosengh ;
After having made this pure place, the beauty of which displayed itself afar,
I was marching in the greatness of my majesty.
Then the serpent perceived
me : then that serpent, that Ahriman, full of death, produced abundantly

against me, by thousands and by myriads, universal envy and opposition. *
Yet all his efforts should eventually prove ineffectual.
Though he might
desolate the world by bringing upon it the waters of a mighty inundation,

yet the rain would reestablish every thing in its right order against the days
of Oschen.
1 Vide supra book ii. chap. 7. 5 I. 1 2.
* Vendidad Sadi in Zend-Avesta, vol. ii. p. 429. pud Bryant.
95
We have here, if I mistake not, a very curious, though not singular, in

stance of the manner, in which the characters of Noah and the predicted
Messiah were sometimes confounded together in the gentile world. Noah is
one of the most eminent types of Christ : so eminent indeed, that the
phraseology and machinery (if I may so speak) both of the Hebrew and of
the Greek Scriptures is in a great measure constructed upon a continued
allusion to his eventful history. It was this resemblance between the type
and the antitype, which produced that otherwise unaccountable coincidence
in many points of the character of our Saviour with that of the great father
of the Gentiles : a coincidence, which has been alleged for the worst of
purposes by certain modern infidel writers, and which cannot be wholly
solved by the theory that many particulars were pilfered from the genuine or
spurious gospels and fraudulently employed to decorate the chief god of the
eastern pagans. That much indeed has been done in this way, cannot for a
moment be doubted : but, that many characteristics of the great father,
which in due season proved to be characteristics of the Messiah, actually
served to distinguish the great father long before the advent of the Messiah,,
can, I think, be as little doubted. It was in fact this partial resemblance,
which caused the very abuse in question. When the ministry of Christ was
closed, the resemblance was soon observed by the curious orientalists. This
resemblance produced most of the early heresies, with which the speculative
east was infected : for the votaries of the great father, embracing indeed
Christianity, but unwilling to relinquish their long-fostered superstition,
soon contended, that Jesus was but one of the numerous manifestations of
him ; who ever appeared, as a preacher of righteousness, as the reformer of
an iron age, and as- the introducer of a new age of gold. When once they
were prepossessed with this wild, though (according to their notions) spe
cious, fancy ; the rest followed of course. The whole history of Christ was
applied to the great father: but it was so applied, only because a certain
degree of resemblance had already been found to subsist between them.
Thus, in the instance now before us, the Nerioscngh of the Zend-Avesta is
evidently the Hindoo Nara-Sing or lion-avatar of Vishnou : and Oschen,
from the context of the passage, must be Noah ; because we are told, that
against his days the waters of the deluge would reestablish every thing in
<J6
order.

Yet, since in the mythology of Egypt, Hindostan, and Greece,
Noah is equally described as being pursued by the serpent or the evil prin
ciple bringing on the flood ; and since the original promise foretold, that the
serpent should bruise the heel of him who should eminently be the seed of the
woman : we find, with that strange degree of evidence which can scarcely be
controverted, that in the person of Oschen, who is primarily Noah or the great
father, the Magi from a very early period expected some mighty deliverer
of man from the tyranny of the serpent and from the bondage of corruption.
(4.) Oschen is palpably the same as Oshander-begha. But Oshanderbegha is said to have been foretold by Zeradusht in the Zend-Avesta as a
just man, who should appear in the latter days to bless the world by the in
troduction of holiness and religion. In his time there was likewise to ap
pear a malignant demon, who should oppose his plans and trouble his em
pire for the space of twenty years.
Afterwards Osider-begha, who seems
to be Oshander-begha under another appellation, was to revive the practice

of justice, put an end to injuries, and reestablish such customs as are immu
table in their nature. To him kings were to be obedient and to advance
his affairs ; the cause of true religion was to flourish ; peace and tranquil
lity were to prevail ; and discord and trouble were to cease.1
It is easy to see, that this predicted Oschen or Oshander-begha is the
person, whose manifestation on earth, at a time when the power of Ahriman should be greatly restrained, is promised by Ormuzd to Goschoroun
immediately upon the death of the first man-bull : and it is equally easy to
see, that every part of the two-fold character of Oshander-begha and Osi
der-begha accurately corresponds with the two-fold character of the just
man Noah antediluvian and postdiluvian, as he is represented in ancient my
thology, combating and finally subduing, though not without being first con
strained to flee himself, the serpent Typhon, or Python, or Ahriman, or
Caliya. The difference consists only in the struggle of the great father
being past, while this of Oshander-begha is spoken of by Zeradusht as yet
future.
But, after all, the difference is rather apparent than real.
It was
the grand doctrine of ancient Paganism, a doctrine which eminently pre1 See the original of this prediction in Hyde de rel. vet. Pen. c xxxi.
97
vailed in the east, that what had once occurred was to occur again ; that, as
the great father or the just man had been revealed at the commencement of
the present world in conflict with the serpent which brought on the deluge,
so he would again be revealed similarly in conflict with him at the beginning
of- another age; that, as he had heretofore been victorious, so he would
again be victorious ; that, as he had already been an universal sovereign and
had introduced a golden age of religious holiness, so he would again rule
over all the kings of the earth, and usher in a remarkable period of justice
and piety. All this would have been taught by Zeradusht, merely in accord
ance with the leading tenet of that ancient Babylonian superstition which
spread itself from Shinar over the face of the whole earth, and without
any necessary reference to the expected Messiah of Jews and Christians.
And that this supposed prophecy at least had no such reference, though at
first sight it might appear to have, may be very plainly collected from the
character of Oschen; who is certainly Noah, because the waters of the de
luge were to reestablish every thing in order against his days. Hence, when
Zeradusht predicted a future Oschen, who should again successfully contend
with the evil principle, he in fact merely asserted a future deluge and the
manifestation of a future Menu at the beginning of a new world.
But, if we advance yet further, and observe how this personage is addi
tionally decorated in a more explicit prophecy also ascribed to Zeradusht,
we shall probably be obliged to conclude, that, in whatever light Oschen
might have been originally viewed, the character of the Messiah was in hina,
at some time or other, superadded to that of the great father. According
to Abulpharagius, Zeradusht, the preceptor of the Magi, taught the Per
sians concerning the manifestation of Christ; and ordered them to bring
gifts to him, in token of their reverence and submission. He declared, that
in the latter days a pure virgin would conceive ; and that, as soon as the
child was born, a star would appear, blazing even at noon-day with undi
minished lustre. You, my sons, exclaimed the seer, will perceive its rising
before any other nation.
As soon therefore as you shall behold the star,
follow it whithersoever it shall lead you ; and adore that mysterious child,
offering your gifts to him with profound humility. He is the Almighty
Word, which created the heavens.1
Pag. Idol.
' Abulpbar. apud Hyde derel. vet. Pers. cxxxi.

vol. ii.
98
Now, although from very remote times the great father was occasionally
believed to have been born from a virgin, although in reference to that
birth he was often viewed as existing in a state of infancy, and although he
was frequently distinguished by a remarkable star possibly on account of
the appearance of a comet at the epoch of the deluge : though all these
particulars are certainly to be found in the multifarious history of the great
father ; yet, when we consider them as they stand connected together in the
prophecy ascribed to Zeradusht, it is almost impossible not to feel persuaded,
that the author of it must have seen the predictions of Balaam and Isaiah.
The only question therefore is, whether the plagiarism was effected before
or after the nativity of Christ.
(5.) I am strongly inclined myself to believe, that it was effected before
the Christian era. My reasons are these.
It is well known, that an universal expectation of some mighty deliverer
prevailed throughout the east previous to the time when our Lord was mani
fested in the flesh : and it is certain, that such a deliverer was actually ex
pected by the Magi, and that some unusual star was believed by them to be
his appointed harbinger, because we find them journeying in quest of him
as soon as they beheld the star. Now the sacred account of this very ex
traordinary transaction is, in my mind, a strong proof, that the later Ze
radusht really delivered to the Magi some such prophecy, as that ascribed
to him by Abulpbaragius : not, of course, that I suppose him to have been
inspired ; but we seem to have it proved to us, that he communicated to his
disciples the predictions of Balaam and Isaiah under the pretence of their
being his own. I trace the proof in the following manner.
The Magi, noticed by St. Matthew, lived in a country directly east of
Judea: this at once shuts' out Arabia, and directs our attention to Chaldea
and Persia. They are especially styled Magi : their name therefore, no
less than their geographical locality, compels us to look to the same region
for them ; because, although there were numerous colonies of the Maghas
to the east and south-east of Persia, and although some of them had pene
trated into Europe by a north-westerly direction, yet, if we travel due east
from Judea (the route prescribed by St. Matthew), I doubt whether we
shall find any of them before we reach Babylonia and the Persian territo
ries. If then they were Persians (and the same conclusion will follow, if
99
they were natives of some other country), they must have been traditionally
taught by their predecessors, as those predecessors are said to have been
taught by the later Zeradusht : for, if this were not the case, it is utterly
impossible to account for the grounds of their conduct. We are explicitly
told, that, while they were yet in the east, they beheld an unusual star; that
they argued from its appearance the birth of the long-expected deliverer ;
that they knew the deliverer would be born king of the Jews ; and that
they undertook a journey from their native land for the express purpose of
worshipping him and of offering to him presents.1 But nothing of this sort
could have been done by them ; if they had not known the particulars, pre
vious to the advent of Christ, which Zeradusht is said by Abulpharagius to
have revealed, in his stolen prophecy, to their forefathers. For, without
this antecedent knowledge, though they might have seen the star, they never
could have imagined that it announced the birth of a great deliverer
the king of the Jews ; and, though they might have indulged in many as
tronomical speculations respecting it, they never would have dreamt of
travelling into Palestine in search of a wonderful infant : all this, without
some antecedent knowledge, they would no more have done, than a mo
dern astronomer would take a voyage to America on a similar errand, because
he had recently observed some remarkable comet. The whole narrative
therefore of St. Matthew supposes and requires this antecedent knowledge :
and, as he gives us not the slightest intimation that their acquaintance with
the purport of the star was recently and specially derived from a divine com
munication, we have no warrant for solving the question in that manner.
He simply represents them as declaring, that they had seen the star in the
east, and that they well knew what such a phenomenon signified. All this
knowledge therefore they possessed before the birth of Christ : and, however
it might be acquired by them, it is at any rate precisely that knowledge
which the later Zeradusht is said to have communicated to their predeces
sors.
They acted, in short, in the identical manner in which they would
have acted, supposing Zeradusht to have really made the communication in

question : and, as their actions imply previous knowledge acquired in some
manner, and as that precise knowledge is said to have been conveyed to
' See Matth. ii.
100
, them by Zeradusht which he himself might easily have acquired from the
Hebrew Scriptures during the Babylonian captivity, I really see no sufficient
grounds for litigating the general authenticity of the prediction ascribed to
him by Abulpharagius.
In this opinion I am the more confirmed by a very
singular part of the declaration of the Magi themselves, as recorded by St.

Matthew : they not only know, that the star announced the birth of a deli
verer in general, but that it signified the nativity of some wonderful Jewish
king in particular.
How did they learn this last circumstance; with which,
it appears, they were already well acquainted before the manifestation of

Christ ? The answer is perfectly easy, if we admit the authenticity of Zeradusht's prediction : and the fact is precisely what might have been expect
ed, if we suppose (what in that case we must suppose) that he fabricated
his self-appropriated vaticination out of the prophecies of Holy Writ. From
them he would learn, that the star was to come out of Jacob ; that the vir
gin-born Immanuel was to be the sovereign of Judah ; that the expected in
fant was to be the Mighty God and the Prince of peace ; and that, although
his government should ever be upon the increase, he should specially sit upon
the throne of his father David.1 Hence, I think, we may clearly perceive,
how the eastern Magi came to know that the star-announced deliverer was to
be a Jewish prince, and how Zeradusht was enabled to communicate that
knowledge to them long before the advent of Christ.
But there is yet another reason for believing, that the plagiarism of Ze
radusht was effected previous to the birth of our Lord, and that the predic
tion ascribed to him by Abulpharagius is not a forgery manufactured subse
quent to it. The connection between the Druids of the British isles and
the Magi of Persia was inferred by Borlase from the palpable identity of
their rites and tenets, even before the progress first of the Celts and after
wards of the Goths had been satisfactorily traced from the East. Now it
is a remarkable circumstance, that in the old Irish history a parallel prophe
cy should be ascribed to a person called Zeradusht : and it is equally re
markable, that the prediction should be said to have been first delivered by
a Daru or Druid of Bokhara, which was the supposed abode of the Persian
1 Compare Numb. xxiv. 17, 18, 19.
lsniahyii. 14. viii. 8. ix. 6,7.
THE ORIGIN OF PAGAN IPOLATRT.
101
Zeradusht.1 I see not, how this minute coincidence can be satisfactorily ac

counted for on the supposition that the Irish legend was the mere forgery of
some monk of the middle ages : because, even if a person of that descrip
tion had been guilty, in the first instance and entirely from his own imagi
nation, of the pious fraud of putting the prophecy of a future deliverer into
the mouth of Zeradusht, he could not possibly have known, that that very
prophecy was ascribed in the east by Abulpharagius to a Zeradusht who was
actually a Daru or Druid of Bokhara. This circumstance, so far I am
able to judge of evidence, removes the suspicion of at least a thorough
paced forgery. Many of the Popish saints are undoubtedly nothing more
than the gods of the Gentiles, whose fabulous history has been strangely
transmuted into a pseudo-christian legend : but, if a romancing monk of
the dark ages had merely found an ancient personage, revered by the pagan
Irish as a prophet under the name of Zeradusht, and if he had been dis
posed to ascribe to this personage a prophecy respecting the Messiah ; he
could not have moulded the prophecy and the history attached to it into their
present form. Supposing him to have possessed a sufficiency of learning to
know that an ancient Persian legislator was mentioned by the Greek and La
tin writers under the title of Zoroaster, he never could have imagined, that
the Zeradusht of the Irish history had any thing in common with this Zo
roaster, because he could scarcely have known that by the Persians Zoroas
ter was called Zeradusht.
But, without such knowledge, which I see not
how he could well acquire, it never would have entered into his head to af
firm, that the Zeradusht who delivered the prophecy was a Druid or Magus
of Bokhara.
Or, if he had unaccountably and at hazard made such an
affirmation, how happens it, that it should actually turn out to be the truth ?
For the identical prophecy, which by the old Irish in the west is ascribed to
Zeradusht of Bokhara, is given by Abulpharagius in the east to the very
same person ; a circumstance, of which a monk in the middle ages could
scarcely have been aware.
The necessary result from this coincidence is both curious and important.
1 See Vallancey's Vindic. of anc. hist, of Ireland. Collect, de reb. Hibern. vol. iv. p. 196
201.
102
There must have been an emigration from Persia to Ireland, by the usual
north-westerly route, subsequent to the original production of the prophecy
of Zeradusht. But that prophecy could not have been manufactured prior
to the time, when the later Zeradusht conversed with Daniel or with some
Jews of the captivity ; because it exhibits internal evidence of having been
stolen from the Hebrew Scriptures. Neither could it have been manufac
tured subsequent to the birth of Christ: because the actions of the Magi,
as recorded by St. Matthew, prove, that they must have possessed the very
knowledge which it conveys when they first beheld the star in their own
country. Hence the emigration from Persia to Ireland must have taken
place between the time of Darius Hystaspis, in whose reign the later Zera
dusht is with reason believed to have flourished, and the birth of Christ,
which called the expecting Magi out of Persia or Chaldea. But, if it took
place before the birth of Christ, then the prophecy ascribed to Zeradusht
must also have been composed before the same era : because, since it has
been discovered in Ireland, it can only have been brought there by the prechristian emigrants from Persia.
(6.) I think we may not obscurely collect, that the sentiments of Zera
dusht himself, respecting thefuture deliverer, were much the same as those
entertained of him, by many of the early eastern heretics, after he had been
manifested.
Oschen, we have seen, was equally a title of the just man Noah, for
whom the world was renovated by the waters of the deluge, and of the ex
pected just man, who was again to contend with the evil principle in the last
ages. Now, since Zeradusht, agreeably to the prevailing dogma of Pagan
ism, already maintained, that Oschen or Key-Umursh or the great father
would hereafter appear at the beginning of a new world as he had heretofore
appeared at the beginning of the present and the antediluvian worlds ; and,
since he further knew, that that same great father, whether designated by the
name of Taschter or Aboudad or Mahabad or Buddha, was eminently distin
guished by a star and was sometimes thought to have been born of a virgin :
since these would be the doctrines and speculations of Zeradusht, in com
mon with the other philosophizing theologists of the east, previous to his hav
ing seen the prophecies of Balaam and Isaiah, it is easy to anticipate the

theory which he would be apt to adopt after he had seen them.
103
He would CHAP.
immediately conclude, that the predicted Messiah, whenever he should be

revealed, would be nothing more than one of those reappearances of the great
father, which his own mythological system taught him at stated inter
vals to expect. And such, which we may collect to have been the notion
of Zeradusht from the circumstance of his applying the same title of
Oschen to the just man whether past or future, was the precise idea
of those mischievous philosophizing heretics who so early disturbed the
peace of the church. They held, as their successors have done after
them, that Christ was a descent of the virgin-born Buddha or Salivahana :
and they garbled the already existing legend of the great father, by in
troducing into it various particulars from the history of Jesus, and by
applying them to the character of their transmigrating hero-god.
Whether the Magi, who travelled from the east to worship the infant
Messiah, became converts to unadulterated Christianity and renounced the
theory which was probably handed down to them from Zeradusht, we are not
informed. They returned to their own country, and we hear nothing more of
them. But, whether they did or did not acquire more just sentiments by
conversing with Mary and Joseph, the report, which they must have brought
back with them, would have a strong tendency to sow in the minds of their
brethren, already impressed with the belief that the great father was about to
be manifested for the purpose of reforming a corrupt world, those seeds,
which afterwards produced so abundant a crop of Gnosticism and Manicheism.
(7.) The mighty river Voorokesche,- which is mentioned very conspi
cuously in the second prayer, though it does not appear in the history, I
take to be the principal sacred Paradisiacal river of the Persian mytholo
gists. It was to them, what the Nile was to the Egyptians, the Danube
to the Celts, the Tanais to the Tauric Scythians, and the Euphrates to the
Babylonians : it was to them, in short, what the Ganges has long been,
and still is, to the Indo-Scythae and Hindoos.
The original chief sacred
river, of which all the others were but locally-appropriated transcripts,

is certainly the Euphrates; because it really flows from the Paradisiacodiluvian region of Ararat or Lubar : and, since the Albordi of the ZendAvesta is clearly the arkite mountain, whether the Persians supposed it
104
literally to coincide with the Armenian Ararat or with the more eastern Meru
of Hindoo theology, the prototype of the Voorokesche must be the Eu
phrates, though it may literally have been identified with some other
stream. 1
This sacred river, from the circumstance of its flowing from the
mountainous country where the Ark rested, was esteemed a symbol of the
oceanic deluge : whence conversely it became a familiar notion with the
ancients to consider the sea as an enormous river. Thus the mythological
poet Homer speaks continually of the streams of the ocean : 1 thus the Egyp
tians were wont to designate by the very same title the ocean, on which the
Ark of Noah floated, and the Nile, which supported on its waters the ark
of Osiris : 1 thus also the Eridanus of the sphere, which by some was thought
to be the Nile, was, as we may easily collect from the peculiar neighbour
hood in which it is placed, no other than the sea or the deluge : * and thus,
to pass from profane to sacred, Jeremiah, when predicting the future state
of Babylon in consequence of the manner in which it was taken by Cyrus,
calls the Euphrates the sea. s Accordingly, from Voorokesche arises that
rain, which is appointed not only to fructify the earth, but likewise to drive
away the evil demons that produce the deluge and to purify the world from
corruption.
VI. Thus I have argued, in favour of the genuine antiquity of at least
the materials out of which the Zend-Avesta has been composed, from the
total dissimilitude of the ideas, prevalent both in the history and in the
prayers, to the simple narrative of Moses, on the one hand ; and from their
perfect similitude to the old mythological notions of the universal pagan
world, on the other hand.
The points, which I wished to establish, were these : that the early history,
contained in the present Zend-Avesta could neither be a mere transcript
from the book of Genesis, nor a total or partial fabrication of modern times,
* The Oxus or Gihon for instance, on which Darab is feigned to have been set afloat in a
wooden ark, like Osiris on the Nile.
1 lxia.voto poouav. Hence our Milton has borrowed his ocean stream.
3 Diod. Bibl. Hist. lib. 1. p. 12.
* Eratos. Catast. Eridanus.
5 Compare Jerem. li. 42. with Bp. Newton's Dissert, x. vol. i. p. 298, 309.
105
whatever may be the age of the compilation in which it appears ; but that
the groundwork of this history, like the fables and traditions (for instance)
collected by Tzetzes and Ovid, is an authentic fragment of very remote anti
quity.
The Zend-Avesta therefore, in its presentform, may be a compara
tively recent production: but internal evidence proves the genuineness of

the materials out of which it has been compiled. This is sufficient for my
argument, and all that I wish to insist upon.
Now, from the examination to which the history and the prayers have been
subjected, I will venture to avdw my belief, that they can neither have been
the original arbitrary invention of a late writer, nor yet a garbled transcript
from the Pentateuch ; though an acquaintance with the sacred volume may _
have produced a chronological regularity of arrangement. Whoever compiled
the Zend-Avesta, the early history contained in it is no modern figment.
The minute accordance of its mythology with the ancient mythologies of
other nations, more especially in those particulars where the accordance has
very little the semblance of being industriously laboured or designed, shews,
that, let who may be its author, he must either have written from old materials,
or have been most profoundly skilled in the arcana of the pagan Mysteries.
The theology, particularly in the doctrine of the reappearance of the great
father, in the exhibiting of him under the symbol of a man-bull, in the describ
ing of him as being astronomically the Sun, and in the mystic intercommu
nion of the Ark and the Moon ; the theology, in all these points, is undoubt
edly the same as the theology of Greece, Egypt, Hindostan, Palestine, and
Britain : and, though (as I have just stated) the authormay have been enabled
to reduce his story into a regular chronological form through his becoming
acquainted with the writings of Moses during or after the Babylonian captivity ;
yet his mode of telling that story is not scriptural, but strictly pagan.
Nor is this all : as the theological opinions, which pervade both the legend
and the prayers, are precisely those opinions, which have prevailed from the
remotest ages throughout the whole gentile world ; so they correspond with
and interpret the sculptured rock temples of Mithras, which are still in ex
istence, and which at this very hour bear testimony to the genuine antiquity
of those materials out of which the Zend-Avesta has been composed.
Thevenot has given a curious delineation of the carved front of one of these
Pag. Idol.
vol. ii.
O
C,,AP. ,u'
106
book hi. sacred caverns ; the imagery of which closely corresponds with the mythology
of the Zend-Avesta.
On the propitious sign of the rainbow is seated a winged
Eros or Cupid, whom the ancient hierophants rightly deemed the oldest of
the gods.
On his left hand appears the Sun, with the flame of an altar
rising towards it.
On his right, kneels an adoring Magus.
And, behind
the votary, is seen a phallus or conical pillar surmounted by a bull's head.

Beneath these are eighteen naked men : and the whole groupe is supported by
two pillars, the capitals of which are each composed of the duplicated head
of a steer. 1 The head on the pillar certainly represents the tauric Mithras ;
viewed, as the great father always was viewed, in the light of the chief gene
rative or regenerative power ; for Porphyry tells us, that Mithras was depicted
riding on the bull of Venus, who was the same as Isis, Astarte, or Mylitta ;
that, like that bull, he was the lord of generation and the creator of the
world ; that he was immediately connected with the mystic birth and egress
of souls from the Moon, symbolized by a cow ; and that he was styled Buclopus or the stealer of oxen, which name that writer seems to consider as
equivalent to one who by stealth attends to generation.* This tauric
Mithras is declared to be the Sun:5 and there was a notion, that he tripli
cated himself or produced a triple offspring; whence the Greeks denominated
him Triplasius. But the man-bull Taschter is also said to be the Sun ;
while, in his human character of the producer of the deluge, he is said to
have been assisted by three inferior attendants. The solari-tauric Mithras
therefore is evidently the solar man-bull Taschter; and the triplication of the
one relates solely to the three attendants of the other.
Such and so varied are the testimonies, which may be brought to the ge
nuine antiquity of the mythological system, taught in the early history of
the Zend-Avesta.
* See the print in Brjanfs Anal. vol. ii. p. 426.
* Porph.de ant. nymph, p. 260, 26l, 262, 265.
3 Mifyas i yte*s
nf<raif. Hesych. Lex.
CHAPTER
IV
Pagan accounts of an universal deluge.
W e have observed, that pagan accounts of the creation generally contain

some strong allusions to the deluge : in a similar manner we shall find, that
pagan accounts of the deluge are frequently marked by references to the
history of the creation. The cause of this apparent confusion is in both
instances the same.
Agreeably to the established doctrine of a succession of similar worlds,
the creation of the antediluvian system was not esteemed a proper creation
or a production of something out of nothing; but was considered only as a
new organization of matter subsequent to a flood, which had destroyed a
former world, and on the surface of which the great father floated in profound
repose during the period that intervened between that world and its successor.
And, analogously to such an idea, the reappearance of the face of the earth,
when the deluge retired into the central abyss, was viewed as the creation of
a new mundane system out of the fragments of a prior system ; the great
father with his seven companions having again floated upon the face of the
deep, during the appointed intermediate period, either ton the lotos, or the
sacred leaf, or the navicular sea-serpent, or the mystic ship. Hence, as the
proper creation was believed to have been preceded by a flood, which de-
108
THE ORIGIN OF PAGAN IDOLATRY..
book in. stroyed a former world; and as our present system was really preceded by a
flood, and was in some sort a new production out of preexisting materials :
it is obvious, that, according to the philosophy of Paganism, there was no
essential difference between the real creation of the world and its renovation
after the deluge. Such being the case, that heathen cosmogonies and heathen
accounts of the flood would be much intermingled together, is in fact nothing
more than what might have been naturally anticipated. If however we make
due allowances for this circumstance, we shall still find, that many of the
more ancient nations have preserved almost literal accounts of an universal
deluge, which correspond in a very wonderful manner with the history of it
as detailed by Moses.
I. I shall begin with that of the Chaldeans or Babylonians, as we have it
handed down to us, from the now lost history of Berosus, by Eusebius,
Syncellus, Abydenus, and Josephus.
Xisuthrus, or (as his name is sometimes written) Seisithrus, was, like
Noah, the ninth in descent from the first-created man of the former mundane
system, In his time happened the great deluge, the history of which is
given in this manner.
The god Cronus appeared to him in a vision ; and gave him notice, that,
on thefifteenth day of the month Desius, there would be a food, by which
all mankind would be destroyed. He therefore enjoined him to commit to
writing a history of the beginning, procedure, and final conclusion, of all
things, down to the present term ; and to bury these accounts securely in the
city of the Sun at Sippara or Sisparnis. He then ordered him to build a
vessel ; to take with him into it his friends and relations ; and to trust him
selffearlessly to the deep. The command was implicitly obeyed. Xisuthrus,
having carried on board every thing necessary to support life, took in like
wise all kinds of animals, that either fly through the air or rove on the sur
face of the earth. He then asked the deity, whither he was to go ; and was
answered, To the gods : upon which he offered up a prayer for the good of
mankind. Thus he obeyed the divine admonition. The vessel, which he
built, wasfive stadia in length, and two in breadth. Into this he put every
thing, which he had got ready; and conveyed into it last of all his wife,
his children, and his friends. After the flood had covered the earth, and
109
when at length it began to abate, Xisuthrus sent out some birds from the CHAP, ,v,
vessel; which, finding neitherfood nor place to rest theirfeet, returned to
him again. After an interval of some days, he sent them forth a second
time : and they now came back with their feet tinged with mud. A third
time he made trial with them ; but they then returned to him no more :
hence he formed a judgment, that the surface of the earth had appeared
above the waters. He noxo therefore opened the vessel; and found, upon
looking out, that it was driven to the side of a mountain. Upon this, he
immediately quitted it, attended by his wife, his children, and his pilot. *
First he paid his adoration to the earth : and then, having built an altar,
he offered sacrifices to the gods. When these things had been duly perform
ed, both Xisuthrus, and those who came out of the vessel with him, disap
peared. They who remained within, finding that their late companions did
not return, now quitted the ship with many lamentations, and called inces
santly on the name of Xisuthrus.
Him however they saw no more : but
they distinguished his voice in the air, and could hear him admonish them to
pay due regard to the gods. He likewise informed them, that on account of
his piety, he was translated to live with the gods; and that his wife, and his
children, and his pilot, had obtained the same honour. To this he added,
that he would have them make the best of their way to Babylonia, and search
at Sipparafor the writings which were to be made known to all mankind.
The place, where these things happened, was in Armenia. The remainder,
having heard his words, offered sacrifices to the gods ; and, taking a circuit,
journeyed towards Babylonia. Berosus remarks, that the remains of the
vessel were to be seen in his time upon one of the Corcyrban or Cordyhan
mountains in Armenia ; and that people were wont to scrape off the bitumen
with which it had been outwardly coated, and to use it by xoay of an alexi1 Mr. Bryant remarks, that this is scarcely a true account. Berosus would hardly suppose
a pilet CxujSEfyijrijf ), where a vessel was totally shut up, and confessedly driven at the will of
' the winds and waves. I can easily imagine, that a Grecian interpreter would run into the
mistake, when he was adapting the history to his own taste. Thus, when the history of the
Ark was transmuted into the legend of the Argo, Tiphys was made its pilot. Hyg. I'"ab. 14.
He seems to be the same person as Canobus, whom the Greeks fancied to Jae the pilot of
Menclaus, and whose star on the sphere is placed in the rudder of the Argo.
MO
THE ORIGIN OP PAGAN IDOLATRY.
book hi. pJiarmic and amulet.
In this manner, they returned to Babylon ; and,
having found the writings at Sippara, they began to build cities and to erect
temples.
Thus was Babylon inhabited again. 1
II. The Greek account of the deluge, which may also be esteemed the
Syrian, is no less explicit, as it stands preserved by Lucian, than that of
the Babylonians.
This generation and the present race of men, says he, were not thefirst :
for all those of that former generation perished. But these are of a
second race; which increasedfrom a single person, named Deucalion, to its
present multitude. Concerning those men they relate the following tale.
Being of a violent and ferocious temper, they were guilty of every sort of
lawlessness. They neither regarded the obligation of oaths, nor the rights
of hospitality, nor the prayers of the suppliant : wherefore a great cala
mity befell them. The earth suddenly poured forth a vast body of water ;
heavy torrents of rain descended; the rivers overflowed their banks; and
the sea arose above its ordinary level: until the whole world was inundated,
and all that were in it perished. In the midst of the general destruction,
Deucalion alone was left to another generation, on account of his extraor
dinary wisdom and piety. Now his preservation was thus effected. He
caused his sons and their wives to enter into a large ark, which he had pro
vided ; and afterwards went into it himself. But, while he was embarking,
swine, and horses, and Hojis, and serpents, and all other animals that live
upon the face of the earth, came to him in pairs. These he took in with
him : and they injured him not ; but, on the contrary, the greatest harmony
subsisted between them through the influence of the deity. Thus they all
sailed together in one ark, so long as the waters prevailed. Such is the
narrative of the Greeks : but the Syrians of Hierapolis add to it a won
derful account of the whole deluge being swallowed up by a vast chasm in
their country. Deucalion, they say, when all these matters had taken place,
erected altars, and built a temple to Juno over the chasm. I myself saw
this chasm ; and, at that time, it was but a small aperture beneath the
' Synccll. Chronog. p, 30. Abyd. apud Euseb. Chron. p. 8. Joseph. Ant. Jud. lib. i.
c 3. * 6.
Ill
temple : whether it was once larger, and afterwards decreased to its present
sixe, I shall not pretend to say ; what I at least saw was but a small orifice.
Of the truth however of this account they adduce the following proof.
Twice in each year water is brought from the sea to the temple : and not
only the priests, but all Syria and Arabia, nay even many persons from
beyond the Euphrates, take the trouble of going down to the sea ; whence
they all bring a certain quantity of water. This, as they convey it, they
first pour out upon the floor of the temple. From thefloor itfinds its way
to the chasm : and the chasm, small as it now is, swalloxos up without diffi
culty a vast quantity of water. Respecting the ceremony they have an
ancient tradition, that it was instituted by Deucalion himself, in memory at
once of his calamity and his deliverance. 1
1. In the preceding narrative Lucian does not introduce the emission of
the dove ; but the defect is amply supplied by Plutarch. That writer, in
his treatise on the sagacity of animals, informs us, that it was maintained
by mythologists, that Deucalion sent a dove out of the ark ; which, when it
returned to him, shewed that the storm was not yet abated; but, when he
saw it no more, he concluded thai the sky was become serene again. 1 How
strong indeed traditions of this nature were in Syria, remarkably appears
from a medal struck at Apamea, in the immediate neighbourhood of Hierapolis, during the reign of Philip the elder. Upon the reverse of it is repre
sented a kind of square chest floating upon the waters. Out of the chest a
man and a woman are advancing upon dry land, while two other persons re
main within. Above it flutters a dove, bearing an olive branch : and another
bird, probably designed for a raven, is perched upon its roof. In one of
the pannels of the chest appears the word Koe in Greek characters. 1
2. The appulse of Deucalion is variously related agreeably to the humour
of local appropriation, which fixed the mountain of the Ark in so many different regions.
1 Lucian de dea Syra.
* Plutarch, de solert. animal, p. 968.
* See the print in Bryant's Anal. vol. ii. p. 230. At the nd of this great work is a tract
expressly on the subject in answer to Mr. Barrington, Mr. Combe, and others, who had con
troverted the opinion of Mr, Bryant.
CHAP. xr.
112
The Syrians brought him to shore in the neighbourhood of Hierapolis ;

probably upon that range of hills, which, like the mountainous tract in the
eastern part of Armenia, bore the name of Taurus or Tabris, as being the
supposed resting place of the ship Baris: Hyginus represents mount Etna
in Sicily as being the scene of his debarkation:1 Servius makes him land
on mount Athos :* and Apollodorus and Ovid concur in assigning that honour
to Parnassus. ' Apollodorus however describes the deluge as being partial
and limited to Greece ; but in all the main particulars he agrees with the
account detailed by Lucian. Deucalion builds a large ark of wood ; and,
after placing in it every thing necessary for life, he embarks himself along
with his wife Pyrrha. The deluge then commences, and covers the greatest
part of Greece; insomuch that all perish except a few, who escape to the
tops of the highest mountains.
The ark in due time rests on mount Parnas
sus; and Deucalion, quitting it, builds an altar to Jupiter the deliverer.
Ovid, on the contrary, speaks of the deluge as being universal : but he de
parts from the true history, by making Deucalion and Pyrrha escape only in
a small bark. Yet he accurately adheres to it in another particular ; exhibit
ing Deucalion, like Noah, as a man of eminent piety and justice.
3. The name of Deucalion seems to have been well known to the Hindoos.
In the Puranas, he is called Cala-Yavana ; but, in the vulgar dialects, and
in common conversation, Calyun and Caljun. His acknowledged divine
extraction entitled him to the epithet of Deva or Deo : but it appears to
have been withheld from him in India on account of his presuming to oppose
Crishna, though it was duly applied to him in Greece ; for Deucalion is what
a Hindoo would write Deva-Cala-Yavana, or in the common dialect DeoCalyun. The Syrians and the Hellenes certainly received the name from
the Chasas or Indo-Scythae ; for Lucian expressly calls Deucalion a Scy
thian : and it was doubtless equally well known to the Chasas of all the three
Caucasi. The Hindoos however do not ascribe to him any escape from a
deluge of water : but they have a confused legend of his perishing by a flood
1 Hyg. Fab. 152, 153.
* Scrv. in Virg. Eclog. vi. ver. 41.
3 Apollod. Bibl. lib. 1. c. 7- 2. Ovid Metara. lib. 1. ver. 317-
THE ORIGIN OF PAGAN IDOLATUY.
113
of fire. This has arisen from the notion, that the world, in the course of CHAPits many revolutions, was to be destroyed sometimes by an inundation of the
one element, and sometimes by an inundation of the other.
catastrophes is in the Sanscrit called Pralaya. 1
Either of these
III. But, though the Hindoos do not speak of the preservation of their
Deucalion from the waters of the deluge, they have some most remarkable
traditions of that great event both direct and indirect, blended however with
much of the wild imagery of mythologic fiction.
1. The following narrative respecting Menu-Satyavrata, who is esteemed
the seventh manifestation of the great father from Menu-Swayambhuva, was
literally translated by Sir William Jones from the Bhagavat ; and it consti
tutes the subject of the first Purana, entitled that of the Matsya or fish.
Desiring the preservation of herds and of Brahmens, of genii and of
virtuous men, of the Vedas of law and of precious things, the lord of the
universe assumes many bodily shapes : but, though he pervades, like the air,
a variety of beings ; yet he is himself unvaried, since he has no quality
subject to change. At the close of the last Calpa, there was a general des
truction occasioned by the sleep of Brahma ; whence his creatures in different
worlds were drowned in a vast ocean. Brahma being inclined to slumber,
desiring repose after a lapse of ages, the strong demon Hayagriva came
near him, and stole the Vedas which hadflowedfrom his lips. When Heri,
the preserver of the universe, discovered this deed of the prince of Danavas,
he took the shape of a minuteflsh called Saphari.
A holy king, named Sa-
tyavrata, then reigned, a servant of the spirit which moved on the waves,
and so devout that water was his only sustenance. He was the child of the
Sun; and, in the present Calpa4- is invested by Narayan in the office of
Menu, by the name of Sraddadeva or the god of obsequies. One day, as
he was making a libation in the river Critamala, and held water in the palm
of his hand, he perceived a small fish moving in it. The king of Dr'avira
immediately dropped the Jish into the river together with the water which he
had taken from it, when the Saphari thus pathetically addressed the bene
volent monarch : How canst thou, O king, who shewest affection to the op-
Pag. Idol.
1 Asiat. Res. vol. vi. p. 496.

vOL. II.
114
pressed, leave me in this river water, where I am too weak to resist the
monsters of the stream, who fill me with dread? He, not knowing who had
assumed the form of afish, applied his mind to the preservation of the Saphari, both from good nature and from regard to his own soul; and, having
heard its very suppliant address, he kindly placed it under his protection in a
small vase full of water. But in a single night its bulk was so increased,
that it could not be contained in the jar ; and it thus again addressed the
illustrious prince : lam not pleased with living miserably in this little vase ;
make me a large mansion, where I may dwell in comfort. The king, remov
ing it thence, placed it in the water of a cistern ; but it grew three cubits
in less thanfifty minutes, and said : O king, it pleases me not to stay vainly
in this narrow cistern ; since thou hast granted me an asylum, give me a
spacious habitation. He then removed it, and placed it in a pool; where,
having ample space around its body, it became a fish of considerable size.
This abode, O king, is not convenient for me, who must swim at large in
the waters : exert thyselffor my safety, and remove me to a deep lake.
Thus addressed, the pious monarch threw the suppliant into a lake ; and,
when it grew of equal bulk with that piece of water, he cast the vastfish
into the sea. When the fish was thrown into the waves, he thus again
spoke to Satyavrata : Here the horned sharks, and other monsters of great
strength, will devour me ; thou shouldst not, O valiant man, leave me in this
ocean. Thus repeatedly deluded by thefish who had addressed him with gentle
words, the king said: IVho art thou, that beguilest me in that assumed
shape ? Never before have I seen or heard of so prodigious an inhabitant
of the waters ; who, like thee, hast filled up in a single day a lake of a hundred leagues in circumference. Surely thou art Bliagavat, who appearest
before me; the great Heri, whose dwelling was on the waves, and who now
in compassion to thy servants bearest the form of the natives of the deep.
Salutation and praise to thee, O first male; the lord of creation, ofpreser
vation, of destruction! Thou art the highest object, O supreme ruler, of
us thy adorers who piously seek thee.
All thy delusive descents in this world
give existence to various beings : yet I am anxious to know for what cause
that shape has been assumed by thee. Let me not, O lotos-eyed, approach
in vain thefeet of a deity, whose perfect benevolence has been extended to all ;
115
when thou hast shewn, to our amazement, the appearance of other bodies, not
in reality existing but successively exhibited. The lord of the Universe,
loving the pious man who thus implored him, and intending to preserve him
from the sea of destruction caused by the depravity of the age, thus told him
how he was to act. In seven daysfrom the present time, O thou tamer of
enemies, the three worlds will be plunged in an ocean of death; but, in the
niidst of the destroying waters, a large vessel, sent by mefor thy use, shall
stand before thee. Then shalt thou take all medicinal herbs, all the variety
of seeds ; and, accompanied by seven saints, encircled by pairs of all brute
animals, thou shalt enter the spacious ark, and continue in it, securefrom
theflood, on one immense ocean, without light, except the radiance of thy
holy companions. When the ship shall be agitated by an impetuous wind,
thou shaltfasten it with a large sea-serpent on my horn ; for I will be near
thee, drawing the vessel with thee and thy attendants. I will remain op the
ocean, O chief of men, ' until a night of Brahma shall be completely ended.
Thou shalt then know my true greatness, rightly named the supreme godhead.
By myfavour all thy questions shall be answered, and thy mind abundantly
instructed. Heri, having thus directed the monarch, disappeared ; and
Satyavrata humbly waited for the time, which the ruler of our senses had
appointed. The pious king, having scattered towards the east the pointed
blades of the grass darbha, and turning hisface towards the north, sat me
ditating on the feet of the god who had borne the form of a fish. The
sea, ove?^helming its shores, deluged the whole earth ; and it was soon per
ceived to be augmented by showersfrom immense clouds. He, still meditating
on the command of Bhagavat, saw the vessel advancing; and entered it with
the chiefs of Brahmens, having carried into it the medicinal creepers and
conformed to the directions of Heri. The saints thus addressed him : O
king, meditate on Cesava, who will surely deliver us from this danger, and
grant us prosperity. The god, being invoked by the monarch, appeared again
distinctly on the vast ocean in the form of a fish, blazing like gold, extending
a million of leagues, with one stupendous horn : on which the king, as he
had been before commanded by Heri, tied the ship with a cable made of a vast
serpent ; and, happy in his preservation, stood praising the destroyer of
Madhu. When the monarch had fmished his hymn, the primeval male
CÂP-
116
THE ORIGIN OF PAGAN IDOLATRY,
Bhagavat, who watchedfor his safety on the great expanse of water, spoke
aloud to his own divine essence, pronouncing a sacred Purana, which con
tained the rules of the Sanchya philosophy : but it was. an infinite mystery to
be concealed within the breast of Satyavrata; who, sitting in the vessel with
the saints, heard the principle of the soul, the eternal being, proclaimed by
the preserving power. Then Heri, rising together with Brahma from the
destructive deluge which was abated, slew the demon Hayagriva, and recovered
the sacred books. Satyavrata, instructed in all divine and human knowledge,
was appointed in the present Calpa, by the favour of Vishnou, the seventh
Menu, surnamed Vaivaswata : but the appearance of a hornedfish to the
religious monarch was Maya or delusion; and he, who shall devoutly hear
this important allegorical narrative, will be delivered from the bondage of
sin.1
Laboriously to particularize the points, in which this curious tradition
agrees with the Mosaical narrative, would be alike useless and impertinent :
it must be obvious to every one, that the history contained in each is funda
mentally the same, though severally told in a somewhat different manner.
The account given by Moses is plain, literal, and unambiguous : that given
in the first Indian Purana, though literal and unequivocal to a considerable
degree, is yet mingled with hieroglyphical allegory. It is remarkable
enough, that towards the close of the legend this is expressly avowed : the
whole is termed an allegorical narrative, and the appearance of the horned
fish is peculiarly specified as being altogether delusion.
(1.) The fish was a sacred symbol : consequently, its introduction into the
story being figurative, it was therefore a fantastic delusion, not to be un
derstood by the votary as a naked matter of fact, but to be received agreea
bly to the well-known rules of hieroglyphical interpretation. In the Hindoo
delineation of this Avatar, Vishnou does not appear simply as a fish, but as
a man issuing out of the mouth of a fish. * Such was the form of the Philistean Dagon : such also was the form of the Babylonian Oannes or Odacon :
and such, allowing for the difference of sex, was nearly the form of the
* Asiat. Res. toI. i. p. 230234.
* See the print in Maurice's Hist, of Hind. vol. i. p. 507.
117
Syrian goddess, who was the same as the marine Venus or Derceto or Atar- CHA*gatis. The male deity represented Noah : the female deity, his allegorical
consort the Ark. Sometimes the masculine divinity appeared attached to
the fish, and sometimes proceeding out of it. The latter mode of delinea
tion probably constituted the genuine hieroglyphic : and it was used to depict
Noah issuing from the Ark, which was symbolized not unaptly by a huge
sea-fish. Yet the former ought not to be too hastily rejected as a mere
corruption : for, agreeably to the constant system of the old mythologists,
if the great mother were typified by a mermaid, the great father would of
course be typified by a merman. At any rate, each figure was certainly used
by the symbolizing pagans : and, how we are to understand the hieroglyphic
of a man issuing out of the mouth of a fish, may be collected very unequi
vocally from the name bestowed upon a supposed ancient king, whose tomb
is shewn at Naulakhi in Cabul. The Buddhists say, that he is BuddhaNarayana or Buddha dwelling in the waters : and the Hindoos, who live in
that country, call him Machodar-Nath or the sovereign prince in the belly
of thefish. Buddha however is the same person as Menu : and the region,
where his tomb is shewn, is the precise tract of land, to which the Hindoos
and the Chasas unite in ascribing the appulse of the Ark. That very Menu
therefore, who is literally said to have been preserved in an ark and who is
emphatically described as the dweller in the waters, is figuratively spoken of
as being the sovereign prince in the belly of the fish. Hence it is sufficiently
obvious, that the belly of the fish and the interior of the Ark mean the same
thing.'
(2.) These remarks will serve to explain a peculiarity in the character of
the crreat father, which seems at first to involve a contradiction.
In the preceding legend, Vishnou appears distinct from Menu, and per
sonates the Supreme Being: yet, single, he is certainly Noah or Menu him
self ; as one of a triad of gods springing from a fourth still older deity, he is a
son of Noah ; and, in his astronomical character, as the Hindoos themselves
assure us, he is the Sun.* For Vishnou, as is evident from the legend, is
the sovereign prince in the belly of the fish; which nevertheless is the precise
1 Asiat. Res. vol. vi. p. 479, 460.
* Asiat. Res. vol. iii. p. 144. vol. v. p. 254.
118
character, that belongs to Menu-Satyavrata, the ancient prince who is feigned

to have been buried at Naulakhi : and Buddha, who is also the sovereign
prince in the belly of the fish, is at once an allowed incarnation of Vishnou
and the very same person as the diluvian Menu.
This intermixture, which is openly acknowledged in the mythology of
Hindostan and which may be readily traced in the similar systems of other
nations, was in fact no more than the natural consequence of the deification
of mortals. When such were raised to the rank of gods by the blind vene
ration of their posterity, consistency required, that the actions and attributes
of the Supreme Being should be ascribed to them; whence some have
groundlessly imagined, that the pagans really worshipped the true God :
but, if we look more closely into the matter, we shall soon perceive, that
other actions and a certain distinct character of their own plainly enough
point out, what these pretended deities properly were. The confusion in
question is noticed by Mr. Wilford, so far as the Hindoo mythology is con
cerned. Satyavrata, considered as Vaivaswata, is, according to the Puranas, an incarnation of that identical Vishnou, who in the form of a fish
preserves him from the calamity of the deluge ; while, as Satyavrata, he is
thought to be mysteriously distinct from him : and, in a similar manner, the
Trimurti is supposed to be incarnate in the triple offspring of every Menu,
as well as in the person of every Menu himself, who successively appears at
the commencement of each new world.1 This distinction indeed is not
perfectly in point, because we are assured that Vishnou as well as the other
persons of the Trimurti is astronomically the Sun : yet, since the attributes
of the Supreme Being are ascribed to him, while he ultimately resolves him
self into the great father who with seven companions is preserved in an Ark
during the prevalence of an universal deluge; we may easily perceive what
character the Gentiles worshipped in the place of the true God, and may
thence learn the strict propriety of St. Paul's declaration that they were really
no better than atheists. * It is worthy of observation, that, in the Chaldee
account of the deluge, Cronus sustains the very same part in reference to
Xisuthrus, that Vishnou does in reference to Satyavrata : yet fundamentally
* Asiat. Res. vol. vi. p. 479-
* A9*oi sv tui xoa-jww.
119
Cronus was Xisuthrus himself ; for he was the parent of three sons among
whom he divided the whole world, and every part of his history proves him
to be the great father or Adam reappearing in Noah.
(3.) The deluge is said to have continued during what is called a night of
Brahma, and the sleep of that god is made exactly commensurate with the
duration of the flood : for he awakes at the end of it ; and, rising with Vishnou
from the retiring waters, slays the demon Hayagriva, and recovers the sacred
books.
This sleep of Brahma, who is acknowledged ultimately to identify himself
with Vishnou and Menu, is the same as the sleep or death celebrated in the
Mysteries. It means the allegorical sleep or death of the great father within
the Ark, during the period which intervened between two worlds : and its
length is represented as being equal to a single night (a night indeed of
Brahma) ; because in the eastern phraseology a day stood for a year, and the
duration of Noah's gloomy confinement was limited to that space of time.
It is also the same as Vishnou's fabled sleep of a millenary on the serpent
Ananta; which is coiled up in the form of a boat, and which thus supporting
the god floats upon the surface of the ocean : for a day, a year, and a mille
nary, were used as convertible terms.
(4.) We are told, that Menu-Satyavrata was constituted the god of obse
quies ; that is to say, he was made the presiding deity of the pagan Inferum.
This declaration is very remarkable; because it clearly serves to point out
what we are to understand by the mythological Hades. The hero-god of the
Ark, we find, is avowedly the chief divinity of the infernal regions : and he
was so constituted at the time of the deluge. Hence, as I have already
shewn, the Hades of the Gentiles was the womb of the great mother: and
the death, or sleep, or descent, or disappearance, of its principal deity
equally related to the allegorical sleep or death of Noah on the surface of
the ocean within his reputed grave or coffin the Ark. On this account the
ancient Mysteries were invariably funereal. They described first the death
of some person, and his inclosure within an ark which was deemed his coffin ;
and afterwards they celebrated his revival and egress. The phraseology was
occasionally varied, bui the object was still the same.1 Thus the identical
* Vide infra book v. c. 6. III. 2. VII.

person, who in a state of death or death-like sleep was said to have been shut
up in an ark and 6et afloat upon the waters, was likewise feigned to have
vanished or to have descended into the infernal regions: and he, who was
supposed to have been wonderfully restored to life and to have quitted the
ark within which he had been confined, was also thought to have reappeared
or to have returned from the realms of Hades. The entrance therefore into
Hades and into the Ark evidently means the same thing : and he, w ho was
preserved at the time of the general deluge, was constituted the god of obse
quies on account of his fabled descent into Inferum. It was in reference to
this state of gloom and death, that the Mysteries were always celebrated in
the night. Thus the Orphic poet speaks of the Orgies of Bacchus or DioNus as being certain ineffable oracles of the night, and of the Mysteries of
Osiris as being the mournful solemnization of his funeral. 1 The night of
Bacchus or Bromius is the night of Brahma ; the birth of Bacchus from the
floating egg is the birth of Brahma from the floating egg ; and the exposure
of Bacchus in an ark on the surface of the ocean is equivalent to the mystic
floating of Brahma during the prevalence of the deluge in the cup of the
aquatic lotos. In a similar manner, the Egyptian god of obsequies, who is
indifferently said to have been slain by the sea, to have descended into Hades ,
and to have been shut up in an ark, is evidently the same character as that
Menu-Satyavrata ; who is literally declared to have been saved in an ark at
the time of the deluge, and who is allegorically feigned to have been consti
tuted the god of obsequies or the regent of Hades.
(5.) As for the demon Hayagriva, he must doubtless be identified with
the Typhon of Egypt, the Python of Greece, and the Ahriman of Persia :
that is to say, he is the evil principle, considered as producing the deluge
and as finally overcome by the great father when the waters retired into the
central abyss.
2. Such is the history, which seems to be veiled under the first of the
Indian Avatars : and very nearly allied to it is the second.
When Adima or Menu-Swayambhuva was newly born, Brahma ordered
him to stock the world with creatures of his own species.
' Orph. Argon, ver. 28, 32.
Menu submissively
121
intreated a place convenientfor thepurpose ofresiding andmultiplying kis kind,

as at that time the whole surface of the earth was covered with water:
for the demon Hirinacheren had rolled it up into a shapeless mass, and had
earned it down to the abyss. Brahma resumed his posture of contemplation
and penance, to obtain the means of raising up the earth ; and pouredforth
the following prayer to the almighty, in profound humility of soul. O
Bhagavat! since thou broughtest me from non-entity into existence for a
particular purpose, accomplish that purpose by thy benevolence! In this
situation, by the power of god, there issuedfrom the essence of Brahma a
being shaped like a boar, white and exceedingly small. This being, in the
space of one hour, grew to the size of an elephant of the largest magnitude,
and remained in the air.
Brahma was astonished on beholding this figure;
and discovered by the force of internal penetration, that it could be nothing

but the power of the omnipotent, which had assumed a body and become
visible.
He now felt that god is all, and that all is from him and in him ;
and he said to Mareechee and his sons : 1 A wonderful animal has emanated
frm my essence ; atfirst of the smallest size, it has in one hour increased to
this enormous bulk, and without doubt it is a portion of the almighty power.
They were engaged in this conversation, when that Vara, or boarform,
suddenly uttered a sound like the loudest thunder, and the eclio reverberated
and shook all the quarters of the universe : but still, under this dreadful
awe of heaven, a certain wonderful divine confidence secretly animated the
hearts of Brahma, Mareechee, and the other genii ; who immediately began
praises and thanksgivings. The Vara figure, hearing the power of the
Vedas and Mantrasfrom their mouths, again made a loud noise, and became
a dreadful spectacle. Shaking the full-flowing mane which hung down his
neck on both sides, and erecting the humid hairs of his body, he proudly disrplayed his two most exceedingly white tusks ; then, rolling around his winecoloured eyes and erecting his tail, he descended from the region of the air,
and plunged head-foremost into the water. The whole body of water was
convulsed by the motion, and began to rise in waves ; while the guardian spirit
of the sea, being terrified, began to tremble for his domain and to cry outfor
' Attendant genii.
Pag. Idol.
vOL. II.
THE ORIGIN OF PAGAN IDOLATRY-.

mercy. At this the devotees and Riskis again commenced their praises in
honour of Bhagavat, who by one glance of his eye illumined the whole world
of water. As the power of the omnipotent had assumed the body of Vara,
on that account he condescended to use the particular instinct of that animal ;
and began to smell about, that he might discover the-place where the earth was
submerged. At length, having divided the water and arriving at the bottom,
he saw the earth lying a mighty and barren stratum. Then he slew
the demon Hirinacheren, took up the ponderous globefreed from the water,
and raised it high on his tusk. One would say, that it was a beautful lotos
blossoming on the tip of his tusk. In a moment, with one leap coming to
the surface, by the alUdirecting power of the omnipotent creator, he spread
it, like a carpet, on the face of the water, and then vanishedfrom the sight
of Brahma. Brahma, contemplating the whole earth, performed due reve
rence to Bhagavat; and, rejoicing exceedingly, began the means of peopling ,
the renovated world. Menu and Satarupa then, having again received
Brahma's order to increase and multiply their kind, began to people the
world, by means of the bond of marriage, in the kingdom of Brahma- VerteVreete.1 They had two sons, Preeve-Vecte and Outanabada, exclusive of a
third named Daksha who was slain by his brother at a sacrifice ; and three
daughters, Akootee, Deivehoote, and Presootee. Akoote was married to
Roochee ; Deivehoote, to Cardam ; and Presootee, to Daksha :1 and by
them and their posterity, in succeeding ages, the whole world was peopled.'
(1.) Mr. Halhed thinks, that this Avatar relates to the creation; but it
is said to be more generally considered by Hindoo historians as allusive to
the deluge : and with tliem Sir William Jones inclines to agree.4 The fact
is, that both opinions are right : for it has a reference at once to the deluge
and to the creation.
Menu-Swayambhuva is certainly Adam : and he is described as preceding
by several generations Menu-Satyavrata, who as certainly is Noah. Now
the present Avatar has for its hero theformer Menu ; as such therefore it
1
1
1
4
Pyag, now called Allahabad.

Tbat is to say, to their three brothers under different names.
Purana apud Maur. Hist, of Hind. vol. i. p. 409411. and Asiat. Res. vol. i. p. 154.
Maur. Hist, of Hind. vol. i. p. 575.
123
must relate to the creation: yet it is placed successively to the fish Avatar,
of which the latter Menu is the hero ; as such therefore it must relate also to
the deluge. Agreeably to this singular arrangement, by which, in the enu
meration of the Avatars, the history of the seventh Menu or Noah is given
previous to that of the first Menu or Adam, the legend now before us exhi
bits the two properly distinct accounts of the creation and the flood curiously
and intimately blended together. The reason of such a mixture is tliat,
which has already been assigned : in the lower sense of renovation, the w orld
was supposed to have been equally created in the days both of Adam and
Noah ; and the mundane systems, over which each of those patriarchs seve
rally presided, were alike believed to have been preceded by an universal
deluge, and to have commenced by a precisely similar process and with
precisely similar events. Thus Swayambhuva and Satarupa, or Adima and
Iva, are clearly the Adam and Eve of Scripture : and the emerging of the
earth from the water, when considered with reference to them, must mean
the rising of the solid dry land out of the confused chaotic mucilage. Yet,
since we find the very Avatar, which treats of these matters, placed chrono
logically subsequent to the first Avatar, which almost literally details the his
tory of the deluge in the time of the seventh Menu or Noah ; the emerging
of the earth from the inundation which covered it must, in this case, be the
emerging of the dry land from the waters of the Noetic flood : for, if the
first Avatar describe the deluge itself, the second, which describes an emerg
ing of the earth from a superfused inundation, must, when thus considered,
exhibit to us a circumstance which immediately succeeded the deluge.
(2.) With this conclusion a large portion of the legend will be found to
agree, both as it has already been detailed, and as it is still ordinarily repre
sented in paintings. The history of the present Avatar still appears depicted r
on the walls of some of the old Pagodas.
Vishnou is there described as a
man, having four arms and the head of a boar. His hands hold a sword, a
sea-shelL the sacred book of the antediluvian writings, and the mystic ring.
His feet trample on the gigantic demon-prince Hirinacheren, who floats ex
tended many a rood in the midst of the waters. His tusks support the cres
cent or lunar boat : and, within the crescent thus supported, is the globe of
the Earth ; which characteristically displays buildings, mountains, and trees.
124
dook ,1,. Beneath, the full Moon appears in the water, attached to a pole which
Hirinacheren holds in his hand. *
The whole of this imagery is diluvian : and it is applicable to the era of the
creation no further, than as the proper creation was itself believed to have
been preceded by a flood and a yet prior world. The demon Hirinacheren,
like the kindred demon Hayagriva in the Matsya Avatar, is a personification
of the deluge considered as the work of the evil principle. His carrying the
Earth therefore down to the bottom of the abyss is nothing more than its sub
mersion beneath the flood : and the death of the monster by which Vishnou
effects its recovery, is the allegorical victory obtained over the deluge, when
its waters were constrained to retire and when the surface of the globe a<*ain
became visible. In a similar manner, the Moon, which Hirinacheren holds
in his hand while both himself and the planet are floating on the waves, is
the astronomical symbol of the Ark : and it was this method of representing
that vessel, which produced all the various strange fables respecting the re
gent of the night that occur so frequently in ancient mythology. One of
these legends is curiously exemplified in the upper part of the painting.
The Earth within the navicular lunette, which Vishnou supports upon his
tusks, is but a graphical representation of a doctrine common alike to Egypt
and to Hindostan, that the Moon was the mottier of the IForId : and the
meaning of the doctrine is, that the regenerated Universe was produced
from the womb of the arkite Ship.
3. I shall now proceed to a consideration of the Courma or Tortoise
Avatar, which, like the two preceding ones, seems to me, as it did to Sir
William Jones and Mr. Maurice, plainly to relate to the deluge, though
mixed with allusions to the creation.
The Soors or good genii, being assembled in solemn consultation upon the
sparkling summit of the great golden mountain Meru or Sommeir, were medi
tating the discovery of the Amrita or water of immortality. The sea was
to be deeply agitated by the impetuous rotation of the mountain Mandar:
but, as the united bands of Dewtahs were unable to remove this mountain, they
went before Vishnou who was sitting with Brahma, and addressed them in
1 See the print of this Avatar in Maur. Hist, of Hind. vol. i. p. 575.

these words. Exert, sovereign beings, your ?nost superior wisdom to remove chAP, iv.
the mountain Mandar, arid employ your utmost powerfor our good. Vishnou
and Brahma having replied, It shall be done according to your wish, he
with the lotos eye directed the king of serpents to appear. Ananta arose,
and was inst?~ucted in that work by Brahma, and commanded by Narayan1
to perform it. Then Ananta, by his power, took up that king of mountains,
together with all its forests and every inhabitant thereof ; and the Soors
accompanied him into the presence of the Ocean, whom they addressed, say
ing, )'Ve will stir up thy waters to obtain the Amreeta. And the lord of the
waters replied, Let me also have a share, seeing I am to bear the violent
agitations that will be caused by the whirling of the mountain. The Soors
and Assoors spake unto Courma-Rajah, the king of the tortoises, upon the
strand of the ocean, and said; My lord is able to be the supporter of this
mountain. The tortoise replied, Be it so : and it was placed upon his back.
So the mountain being set upon the back of the tortoise, Eendra began to
whirl it about as it were a machine. The mountain Mandar served as a churn,
and the serpent Vasookee for the rope : and thus, in former days, did the
Dewtahs, the Assoors, and the Danoos, begin to stir up the waters of the
ocean for the discovery of the Amrita. The mighty Assoors were employed
on the side of the serpent's head, whilst all the Soors assembled about his tail.
Ananta, that sovereign Dew, stood near Narayan. They now pull forth
the serpent's head repeatedly, and as often let it go: while there issuedfrom
his mouth, thus violently drawn to andfro by the Soors and Assoors, a conti
nual stream of fire and smoke and wind ; which ascending in thick clouds
replete with lightning, it began to rain down upon the heavenly bands who
were already fatigued with their labour, whilst a shower of flowers was
shaken from the top of the mountain, covering the heads of all, both Soors
and Assoors. In the mean time, the roaring of the ocean, whilst violently
agitated with the whirling of the mountain Mandar by the Soors and
Assoors, was like the bellowing of a mighty cloud. Thousands of the va
rious productions of the waters were torn to pieces by the mountain, and
confounded with the brinyflood ; and every specific being of the deep, and
all the inhabitants of the great abyss which is below the earth, were annihi\ The mover on the waters, a title of Vishnou.
126
nooK m. lated ; whilst, from the violent agitation of the mountain; the forest-trees
were dashed against each other and precipitated from its utmost height with
all the birds thereon : from the violent confiscation of which a raging fire
was produced, involving the whole mountain with smoke andfame as with a
dark blue cloud ând the vividflash of lightning. The lion and the retreating
elephant are overtaken by the devouring flames, and every vital being and
every individual object are consumed in the general conflagration. The
ragingflames, thus spreading destruction on all sides, were at length quenched
by a shower of' cloud-borne water poured down by the immortal Eendra.
And noxo a heterogeneous stream of the concoctedjuice of various trees and
plants ran down into the brinyflood. It wasfrom this milk-like stream of
juices, produced from those streams, trees, and plants, and a mixture of
melted gold, that the Soors obtained their immortality. The waters of the
ocean, now being assimilated with those juices, were converted into milk ;
andfrom that milk a kind of butter was presently produced : when the hea
venly bands went again into the presence of Brahma, the granter of boons,
and addressed him, saying : Except Narayan, every other Soor and Assoor
isfatigued with his labour, and still the Amreeta doth not appear ; wherefore
the churning of the ocean is at a stand. Then Brahma said unto Narayan ;
Endue them with recruited strength, for thou art their support. And Na
rayan answered, and said : I will givefresh vigour to such as cooperate in
the work; let Mandar be whirled about, and the bed of the ocean be kept
steady. When they heard the words of Narayan, they all returned again to
the work, and began to stir about with great force that butter of the ocean :
- when there presently arose from out of the troubled deep first the Moon,
with a pleasing countenance, shining with ten thousand beams ofgentle light.
Next followed Sree, the goddess of fortune, whose seat is the white lily of
the waters ; then Soora-Devi, the goddess of wine ; and the white horse,
called Oochisrava. And after these there was produced from the unctuous
mass thejewel Kowstoobh, that glorious sparkling gem worn by Narayan on
his breast : then Pareejat the tree of plenty ; and Soorabhee, the cow that
granted every heart's desire. The Moon, Soora-Devi, the goddess Sree,
and the horse as swift as thought, instantly marched away towards the Dews,
keeping in the path of the sun. Then the Dexo Dhanwantaree, in human
shape, cameforth, holding in his hand a white vessel filed with the immortal
<
THE ORIGIN OF PAGAN IDOLA1RV.

juice Amrita.
127
When the Assoors beheld these wondrous things appear, they CHAP- 1T-
raised their tumultuous voicesfor the Amrita, and each of them clamorously
exclaimed, This of right is mine. In the mean time, Iravat, a mighty ele
phant, arose, now kept by the god of thunder : and, as they continued to
churn the ocean more than enough, that deadly poison issued f10r?1 its bed
burning like a raging fire, whose dreadfulfumes in a moment spread through
the world, confounding the three regions of the universe with its mortal
stench ; until Siva, at the word of Brahma, sroal/owed thefatal drug to save
mankind.1
We may, I think, discover in this legend that mixture of Paradisiacal
and diluvian ideas, which would naturally result from the circumstance of
the Ark having rested in that identical mountainous region where the garden
of Eden was once planted.
(1.) It opens with a consultation of the hero-gods held on the summit of
Meru : and the object of their consultation is, how the lost water of im
mortality may be best regained.
This part of the fable, when the identity of Meru and Paradise is recol
lected, must necessarily, I think, relate in the first instance to the obscurely
promised recovery of that perpetual life, which was forfeited by the trans
gression of Adam and Eve. Yet, a3 the mythological history of Meru is
completely blended with diluvianism (for Meru is but a locally appropriated
transcript of the Paradisiacal Ararat) ; and as the world with its inhabitants
was, after the flood, restored (as it were) to a new life within the very pre
cincts of Eden : the recovery of the lost Amrita is placed at the close of the
deluge, and is tlms studiously confounded or identified with the renovation
of the desolated earth.
(2.) A principal instrument in the work is said to be mount Mandar.
But Mandar is the very same mythological hill as Meru. This is manifest,
both from its form, and from its locality.
In the Hindoo delineation of the Courma Avatar, mount Mandar ap
pears as an inverted cone : and by the divines of Thibet mount Meru is
thought to resemble an inverted conical pyramid.*
The forms of both
' Wilkins's Geeta. p. 146149.
1 See the print in Maur. Hist, of Hind. vol. i. p. 581. and Asiat. Res. vol. viii. p. 273.

, therefore are so perfectly alike, as to prove sufficiently, that Mandar and
Me.ru are but different names of one mountain.
And this conclusion is decidedly established by a reference to geography.
The literal Meru, or the load Ararat of Hindostan, has been shown to be
the high country at the head of the holy river Ganges. But the literal
Mandar, which, precisely like Casi and Meru, is esteemed a favourite re
treat of the ark-supported Siva and the navicular hero-gods, is similarly si
tuated at the source of the very same river.1
Thus we have as distinct a proof as can be desired of the identity of Me
ru and Mandar : and, with it, both the import of the word Mandar, and
the use to which in the legend the hill is applied, will be found exactly to
agree. The word itself signifies a mountain dividing the waters :* and this
appellation, which is most accurately descriptive of Meru or Albordi or
13aris or Ararat, clearly relates to the circumstance of the arkite mountain
being esteemed the first land that divided the waters of the subsiding de
luge by emerging from beneath them. Hence it is made the fabled instru
ment of churning the ocean, and of thus recovering the lost water of im
mortality. We shall be brought to the very same conclusion by an interest
ing particular in the delineation of the Courma Avatar, though that particu
lar is not specified in the legend itself. Vishnou appears sitting upon a lotos,
which rests on the summit of mount Mandar.
Now the lotos is declared
to be a symbol of the ship Argha; which wafted the great father over the
waters of the retiring flood, and which therefore must certainly be the Ark.
Such then being the import of the hieroglyphic, it is easy to understand the
allusion, with which it is here introduced. The fish-god Vishnou, seated in
the calix of this aquatic flower which rests on the summit of the diluvian
mount of Paradise, is certainly Noah in the Ark when it grounded on the
top of mount Ararat.
(3.) As for the various pretious things produced from the churned ocean,
they have all some reference either to the flood or to the sacred garden. The
Moon, the cow of plenty, and the two goddesses of fortune and of wine,
equally shadow out the mundane Ark : the mystic fruit-tree, and the white
' Asiat. Res. vol. iii. p. 193.
* Asiat Res. vol. iii. p. 74.
129
vessel filled with the immortal juice Amrita, are but corruptions of the tree
of knowledge and the ambrosial fruit springing from the tree of life : while
the elephant, under which form Buddha is believed to have been incarnate,
and the seven-headed horse, which has been a familiar symbol in so many
different parts of the globe, alike represent the great universal father as pre
siding over the seven members of his family. The same mythological cha
racter, that is to say, Adam manifested anew in the person of Noah, appears
again as the physician Dew-Dhanwantaree, who emerges from the ocean
holding in his hand the vessel of Amrita. In the painting, he stands upon
the water in the attitude of prayer : and near him, likewise on the water, is
a bow, which seems to be placed there in allusion to the rainbow. As the
restorer of the ruinec| world, he is properly, made to bear the vase, which
contains the recovered waters of immortality: and, as the destined comforter
and healer of the anathematized earth, he is exhibited in the light of a skil
ful physician, the Apollo and Esculapius of the west, who is well able to
heal the deep wounds of convulsed nature.1
(4.) We may remark in the present fable, that, although the scene of it
is laid in the ocean, although heavy torrents of rain are said to descend
while the hill Mandar is impetuously whirled round, and although the uni
versal creation is represented as being overwhelmed in the great abyss; yet
a terrible conflagration is spoken of, as being the accompaniment of this
destructive flood.
It is curious to note, how frequently the old pagan accounts agree in that
particular, and likewise in the appearance of some unusual star at the time
of the deluge. I must confess, that so general an accordance, which I have
already had occasion to point out, strongly inclines me to the adoption of
Mr. Winston's theory, that the instrumental cause of the flood was the too
near approach of a comet.
On such a supposition, the prevailing notion, that
the deluge was either preceded or attended by a conflagration and that some
remarkable star hung in the firmament during the period of its continuance,
will be naturally and easily accounted for: but, otherwise, it will be difficult
to assign any satisfactory reason for it.
IV. The diluvian traditions, which prevailed among the Celtic Druids,
Pag. Idol.
1 Gen. v. 29.
vol. 11.
130
ooicin.
in many respects a close resemblance to those, which still constitute so

prominent a part of the theological code of Hindostan. The sum of them,
according to Mr. Davies, is briefly as follows.
The profligacy of mankind had provoked the Great Supreme to send a
pestilential wind upon the earth. A pure poison descended : every blast
was death. At this time the patriarch, distinguished for his integrity, was
shut up, together with his seven select companions, in the floating island or
sacred inclosure with the strong door. Here the just ones were safe from
injury. Presently, a tempest of fire arose. It split the earth asunder to the
great deep. The lake Llion burst its bounds : the waves of the sea lifted
themselves on high, round the borders of Britain : the rain poured down
from heaven : and the water covered the earth. But that water was intend
ed as a lustration, to purify the polluted globe, to render it meet for the re
newal of life, and to wash away the contagion of its former inhabitants into
the chasms of the abyss. The flood, which swept away from the surface of
the earth the expiring remains of the patriarch's contemporaries, raised his
vessel or inclosure on high from the ground, bore it safe upon the summit of
the waves, and proved to him and his associates the water of life and reno
vation.1
1. Such is the Druidical account of the deluge : and it is curious to ob
serve, how perpetually the bards, in their sacred poems, recur to the various
events of it.
The inundation will surround us, the chief priests of Ked.1 Yet com
plete is my chair in Caer Stdi.' Neither disorder nor age will oppress him
that is within it.
It is known to Manawyd* and Pryderi,' that three loud
' Davies's Mythol. p. 226.

1 The ship-goddess Ceridwen.
' The inclosure of Sidi or Ceridwen, that is Stonehenge ; the circle of which symbolised at
once the Ark and the World. Hence the Druids styled it the Ark of the World : and hence it
was fabled to have sailed over the sea, under the guidance of Merlin, from Ireland to Britain.
* Menu-Ida, the arkite or mundane Menu. He is said to have sailed through the ocean,
inclosed within the curvatures of the ship-goddess Ked, which he formed for that special pur
pose. Gwawd Lludd y Mawr. apud Davies's Mythol. p. 563 et infra. He is palpably the
same as the Indian Menu, who is preserved with seven companions in an ark supposed to be
a form of the ship-goddess Isi or Ida.
5 Wudom, or Mental Intellect ; a title of Noab, equivalent to the Greek Now, the Sa&
131
strains round the fire will be sung before it : whilst the currents of the sea
are round its borders and the copiousfountain is open from above, the liquor
within it is sweeter than delicious wine.1
O thou proprietor of heaven and earth, to whom great wisdom is attri
buted, a holy sanctuary there is on the surface of the ocean. May its chief
bejoyful in the splendidfestival, and at the time when the sea rises with ex
panding energy. Frequently does the surge assail the bards over their ves
sels of mead: and, on the day when the billows are excited, may this inclosure
skim away, though the billows come beyond the green spotfrom the region of
the Picts.1 A holy sanctuary there is on the wide lake, a city not protected
with walls; the sea surrounds it.1 Demandest thou, O Britain, to what
this can be meetly applied? Before the lake of the son of Erbin let thy ox
be stationed. A holy sanctuary there is upon the ninth wave. Holy are its
inhabitants in preserving themselves. They will not associate in the bonds
of pollution. A holy sanctuary there is : it is rendered complete by the re
hearsal, the hymn, and the birds of the mountain. Smooth are its lays in
its periodicalfestival: and my lord* duly observant of the splendid mover, %
before he entered his earthly cell in the border of the circle, gave me mead
and wine out of the deep crystal cup. A holy sanctuary there is within the
gulf: there every one is kindly presented with his portion. A holy sanctuary
there is with its productions of the vessel of Ked.6 The writings of Prydain1 are thefirst object of anxious regard: should the waves disturb their
scrit Menu, and the Latin Mens, or Menet. All these are similarly names of the great father,
who was deemed the Soul or Mind of the World.
' Taliesin's Sons of Llyr, apud Davies's Mythol. p. 506".
The inclosure is Stonehenge, as before : here it is evidently described as a ship.
3 A lake symbolized the diluvian ocean. Here it is used synonymously with the sea; for
the sanctuary is in a lake, and yet the sea surrounds it.
4 The hierophant, by whom the bard has been initiated into the Mysteries of the navicular
Hu and Ceridwen, the great father and great mother of Celtic theology.
5 The sun, worshipped in conjunction with the great father.
* The cauldron of inspiration ; an implement of such importance, that the term was used
metaphorically to describe the entire Mysteries of bardism. For an account of this cauldron
as used in the Druidical Orgies, see below, book v. c. 6. VIII. 4.
1 Or Hu, the helio-arkite Noah.
CHAF- ,T*
ISfi
THE ORTGIN OF PAGAN IDOLATRY.
foundation, I would again, if necessary, conceal them deep in the cell. A

holy sanctuary there is upon the margin of the flood : there shall every
one be kindly presented with his wishes.1
Disturbed is the island of the praise of Hu, the island of the severe remunerator ;* even Mona of the generous bowls which animate vigour, the
island whose barrier is the Mena? Deplorable is the fate of the ark of
Aeddon* since it is perceived, that there neither has been nor will be his equal
in the hour of perturbation. When Aeddon camefrom the land of Gwydion
into Seon of the strong door,s a pure poison diffused itselffor four succes
sive nights, whilst the season was as yet serene.
His cotitemporaries fell.
' Taliesin's Min. Dinbych, or a view of the bardic sanctuary, apud Davies.
* Noah, in his character of the destroyer ; the Siva of the Hindoos, and the Cronus of the
Greeks.
* The frith between Anglesey and Wales, so called from Menu.
4 Or Adonis, a title of Hu; the Greek Aidoneus.
1 The Ark, and hence the insulatedfanes sacred to arkite Mysteries. Gwydion was Hermes :
and Hermes or Bnddha was the same as Hu or Noah. His land may have been the old world,
which was overwhelmed by the deluge ; as it was his traditional office to conduct the dead into a
region beneath the abyss. In this passage we have much arkite mythology. 1. The patriarch
camefrom the land of Hermes or the old world. 2. He entered the incloture of Seon or of
the nine sacred damsels, which was guarded by the strong door or barrier. This inclosure was
the Ark. 3. When he was shut up in this sanctuary, the Great Supreme sent forth a poison
ous vapour to destroy the wicked world. To this bane the bards often allude. But the messen
ger of death entered not the inclosure of Seon. 4. By this pestilential vapour, which filled
the whole atmosphere, the patriarch's wicked contemporaries were destroyed : but the earth was
still polluted. 5. Then the great magicians with their magic wands setfree the purifying ele
ments: one of the effects of which, as described in the triads, was the dreadful tempest offire,
which split the earth to the great deep, and consumed the greatest part of all that lived. Upon
this, the waters of Llyn Llion or the great abyss burst forth. 6. These powerful agents would
have destroyed the patriarch and his family in Caer Seon, had nut Hermes counselled him to
impress a mysticalform, or to strike a peculiar signal, upon his shield. 7- This device, together
with the integrity of the just ones, preserved them from being overwhelmed by the deluge. 8.
Hence an imitation of these adventures became a sacred institution, which was duly observed in
the Mysteries and conducted by the presiding priest. Davies in loc.
It is easy to see, that the Arabic fable of the righteous monitory prophet Houd, and of the
cold pestilential wind Sarsar which destroys ft wicked race that had long been warned in vain,
has originated from the same source as the Uritish and Hindoo legends. Mr. Southey has in
troduced the circumstance from D'Herbelot and Sale into his beautiful poem of Thalaba.
133
The woods afforded them no shelter, when the winds arose in their skirts.
Then Math and Eunydd, masters of the magic wand, set the elements at
large : but in the living Gwydion and Amaethon there was a resource of'
counsel to impress the front of his shield with a prevalent form, aform irre
sistible. Thus the mighty combination of his chosen rank was not over
whelmed by the sea. Disturbed is the island of the praise of Hu, the island of
the severe inspector. Before Buddwas1 may the community of the Cymry re
main in tranquillity ; he being the dragon chief, the proprietor, the right
ful claimant, in Britain. What shall consume a ruler of the illustrious
circle ? Thefour damsels, having ended their lamentation, have performed
their last office.1. But the just ones toiled : on the sea, which had no land,
long did they dwell : of their integrity it was, that they did not endure the
extremity of distress?
Am I not called Gorlassar, the etherial ? My belt has been a rainbow
enveloping my foe. Am I not a protecting prince in darkness to him, who
presents my form at both ends of the hive?* Am not la plougherV Have
not I protected my sanctuary, and with the aid of my friends caused the
wrathful ones to vanish ? Have I not shed the blood of the indignant in
bold warfare against the sons of the giant Nur ?6 Have not I imparted
of my guardian power a ninth portion in the prowess of Arthur ? Did
1 A title of Hu, who was venerated under the symbol of a huge serpent and acknowledged
as the supreme lord of Britain, where his chief-priest governed as his vicegerent, buddwas is,
I am persuaded, the same word as the oriental Buddha or Boudt or Budd-Isa, and as the Greek
Boiotus or Butts or Bootes.
1 These damsels were the arkite priestesses, whose office it was in the Mysteries to bewail
the allegorical death of their god ; as the Jewish women, who had apostatised to the idolatry
of Syria, wept for Thammuz or Adonis. The same rites prevailed in Egypt on account of
the supposed death of Osiris.
3 Taliesin's Elegy of Aeddon of Mona. apud Davies.
* A hive was a type of the Ark. Hence both the diluvian priestesses and regenerated souls
were called bees: hence bees were feigned to be produced from the carcase of a cow, which
also symbolized the Ark : and hence, as the great father was esteemed an infernal god, honey
was much used both in funeral rites and in the Mysteries.
5 An allusion to the agricultural character of Noah.
6 The wicked race of the antediluvian Titans or Ncphclim.
C,,AP- ,v-
134
book in.
mf I give to Henpen the tremendous sword of the enchanter?
Did not I
perform the rites of purification, when Hearndor1 moved with toil to the top
of the hill?
I was sulyected to the yokefor my affliction; but commensurate
was my confidence :* the world had no existence, were it not for my progeny.
Privileged on the covered mount* O Hu with the expanded wings* has been
thy son, thy bardic proclaimer, thy deputy,5 O father Deon :6 my voice has re
cited the death-song, where the mound representing the world is constructed of
stone work.7
Let the countenance of Prydain, let the glancing Hu, attend
to me.*
The birds of wrath securely went to Mona to demand a sudden shower of
the sorcerers : but the goddess of the silver wheel of auspicious mien, the
down of serenity, the greatest restrainer of sadness, in behalf of the Bri
tons, speedily throws round his hall the stream of the rainbow ; a stream,
which scares away violence from the earth, and causes the bane of itsform
er state round the circle of the world to subside. The books of the ruler of
the mount record no falshood. The chair of the preserver remains here :
and, till the doom, shall it continue in Europe.9
2. With respect to the genuineness of these remarkable fragments of
Druidical mythology, I would adopt a mode of arguing similar to that
which has already been adopted in the case of the Zend-Avesta.
To the main question I think it wholly immaterial, by whom the Triads
may have been reduced into their presentform : I rest the matter upon the
contents of the bardic writings. Now, from the minute resemblance between
* Iron-door, XtSijf oflufij, a title of the Ark.
* Noah's state of affliction during the flood was symbolized by a bull submitting to the yoke.
1 The sacred mount or tumulus, that represented Mcru or Ararat.
* Thus the Orphic poet celebrates Dionusus, the first-born of the floating egg, as exulting
with his golden wings. Hymn. v. 2.
1 The character of the god was sustained by his representative, the archimagus or chief druid.
6 Deon seems to be an abbreviation of the Sanscrit Deonaush and the Greek Dionus.
1 One of the circular stone temples, probably Stonehenge. These, agreeably to the oriental
notion of the Ida-vratta, represented, as we are here told, the World; and, as we are elsewhere
informed, the mundane Ark, to adopt the phraseology of Druidism.
* Marnwnad Uthyr Pendragon. apud Davies.
9 Cadair Ceridwen. apud Davies.
135
the mythology of the Druids, and that of the Egyptians, the Hindoos, and CBAP' *
other eastern nations, no person could have forged those remains in the mid
dle ages without being well acquainted with the religious opinions of those
nations : and it is not easy to say, how such an acquaintance, such an inti
mate acquaintance, with them could have been procured at that period. We
not only find a general indefinite similarity ; but we meet with the same sym
bols, and even the same titles, of persons, exhibited under exactly similar
circumstances. If a bull and a dragon were two eminent emblems through
out the east, not to mention Greece and Italy ; they are no less so in the
writings of the bards. If the initiated were thought to receive a second
and even a third birth in the Mysteries of the Greeks and the Hindoos ; the
very same potency was ascribed to the Mysteries of the Druids. If circles
on the summits of hills were throughout the east esteemed at once types of
the Ark and of the World ; a notion exactly similar prevailed in Britain.
If the Indian Menu is preserved from the deluge in a large vessel, well
stored with corn, and bound with a vast sea-serpent ; the Druidical Menwydd or Menu-Ida sails through the grievous waters inclosed within the cur
vatures of Ked, the forepart of which is stored with corn and bound with
connected snakes. If the old Greek writers tell us, that Dionusus, Ceres,
and Proserpine, were venerated in Britain ; and that their orgies were the
same as those of the Samothracian Cabiri : on examining the bardic frag
ments which have come down to us, we find them setting forth the worship of
those very three deities, and describing certain Mysteries which closely resem
ble those of Samothrace.1 In short, if we advert to the writings of the
bards, we there find a religion delineated, which differs from that of Hindostan no more, than the religion of papal Rome (as Mr. Wilford has aptly
remarked) differs from that of Geneva. We know however, that the bards
of the middle ages, posterior to the Christian era, could have had no com
munication with Hindostan. How then are we to account for this strange
series of coincidences ? We cannot reasonably ascribe it to what is usually
called accident. But, if it be not accidental, then the substance of the
* Dionys. Perieg. ver. 565, 575.
Apoll. Argon, lib. i. ver. M7.
Artemid. apud Strab. Geog. lib. iv. p. 198. Schol. in
136
THE OIUGIN OF PAGAN IDOLATRY.
bardic writings must exhibit to us the genuine theology of the ancient Druids:
because the bards of the age of Taliesin could not have borrowed their ma
terials directly from Hindostan.
On the whole, I see not how we can account for the violent attachment
of the Britons to the Mysteries of Hu and Ceridwen even so late as the
twelfth century, which is a naked historical fact ; unless we suppose that
those Mysteries were the Mysteries immemorial ly celebrated by their fathers
agreeably to the positive declarations of the Greek historians. The Britons
were remarkably tenacious of old customs : and it is utterly incredible, that,
at the very time when they were gradually embracing Christianity, they
should suddenly strike out a novel superstition and embrace it in conjunc
tion with the Gospel. Yet, unless we allow the genuineness of the bardic
materials, we shall be compelled to adopt the inconceivable theory, that the
Britons at that precise period not only invented a new superstition, but that
they stumbled upon the very theology which still so eminently prevails in
Hindostan. Many were the attempts made to wean them from their idola
trous propensities ; and many are the indignant allusions to the monks,
which are scattered through the writings of the bards. Those writings cer
tainly describe what the Britons were then attached to : and I am con
strained to believe, by an accumulated mass of evidence, that what they
were so vehemently attached to was the very theology, to which their fathers
from time immemorial had been attached before them.1
V. I have already had occasion to notice the Persian account of the de
luge, as contained in the Zend-Avesta: and, from the peculiar mode in
which the great father is there symbolized, I am inclined to believe, that the
groundw ork of it is a portion of genuine ancient mythology. The Magi how
ever, according to Dr. Hyde, appear also to have been in possession of a more
literal narrative of that event, though mingled with circumstances not a
little impertinent.
The orthodox part of the old Persians, he informs us, believed in an
universal deluge: though some sects among them denied it entirely; and
1 Mr. Davies very reasonably argues the point in a somewhat similar manner.
257, 258, 259.
Mythol. p.
137
others maintained, that it was only partial, not extending beyond a mountain
situated in the confines of Assyria and Persia. The flood itself they sup
posed to have burst forth from the oven of an old woman named Zala-Cupha, whose house was situated on the mountain where Noah dwelt previous
to that calamity.
It is said to have been asserted by Zeradusht, that the
deluge would never have taken place, had it not been owing to the wicked
ness and diabolical incantations of Malcus.1
This cause is substantially the same as that assigned in the Zend-Avesta.
The strange notion of the waters bursting forth from an oven, the prototype
of which oven I conceive however to have been a sacred Mithratic cavern,
was not peculiar to the Persians. A similar legend is introduced into the
Koran : and some pretended, that the oven was that, which had been used
by Eve, and which had afterwards been possessed by the successive pa
triarchs of the Sethite line until at length it devolved to Noah.* With the
tale seems to be blended the very prevalent opinion, that fire, no less than
water, was employed in the destruction of the old world. Thus the literal
Arabic of Mohammed says, that the oven boiled over with the waters of
the deluge : and thus the Jewish Rabbins have a tradition, that those waters
were boiling hot* Such fables are nearly allied to the boiling of the British
cauldron of Ceiidwen, and to the churning of the ocean in the Courma
Avatar of Hindostan.
It is worthy of observation, that the Persians described the patriarch who
escaped, by the very same title as that employed both by the Hindoos and the
Greeks. One of the names of the Indian Menu is Call or Time: Cronus,
theGreek appellation of Saturn, has a manifest affinity with Chronus, which
also signifies Time :4 and Sir William Jones was assured by a learned fol
lower of Zeradusht, that in the books, which the fiehdins hold sacred, men
tion is made of an universal deluge styled the deluge of Time?
VI. The Egyptian mythology is clearly the same as that of the Brahmens
and the Druids.
It is for the most part built upon memorials of the deluge :
1 Hyde de rel. vet. Pers. c. x.

* Koran, c. xi. Sale's annot. in loc.
' Sale's Annot. in Koran, c. xi.
* Saturnusa Gracis, immutata liters, Kfocof quasi Xfyof vocalur. Macrob. Saturn,
lib. i. c. 22. p. 214.
5 Asiat. Res. vol. i. p. 240.
Pag. Idol.
vol. ii.
S
138
nooxm.
THE ORIGIK OF PAGAN 1DOLATJIV.
an(j mat1y 0f its peculiarities were probably mtroduced by the Shepherdkings, who seem to have been no other than a branch of those Chasas or
Cuthim or Palli ; who, under different circumstances and at different periods,
carried both their arms, their polity, and their religion, into every quarter of
the globe. The character of the Egyptian deities I shall reserve for future
consideration : at present it is my wish, as much as may be, to confine my
self to traditions specially describing the deluge.
On this point, the Egyptians entertained an opinion, exactly similar to
that of the Brahmens and the Druids ; or rather, I should say, the identical
opinion, which I have so frequently been led to notice as the very foundation
of old pagan mythology : namely, that the world was destined to experience
many vicissitudes of destruction and renovation, partly by the agency of fire,
and partly by that of water. The priest, who conversed with Plato on the
subject, after discussing a dissolution of the earth by fire set forth (as he
imagined) under the story of Phaethon, next proceeded to discourse of its
submersion by a great deluge. The gods, said he, now wishing to purify
the earth by water, ovenvhelmed it with aflood.
On this occasion, certain
herdsmen and shepherds were saved on the tops of the mountains : but they,
who dwelt in the cities which are situated in our country, were swept away
into the sea by the rising of the rivers.'
It is impossible not to observe the remarkable similarity between the no
tions which enter into this account, and those which constitute so prominent
a feature in the tradition of the Druids. Fire precedes water in the task of
destruction : and the latter is considered, not merely as an instrument of
desolation, but as an agent employed to purify the earth from the stains
which it had contracted by the wickedness of its former inhabitants.
This
coincidence serves additionally to prove, that the writings of the bards con
tain fragments of genuine British mythology.
I may here properly remark, that the w orld is sometimes said to be des
troyed by the joint operation of fire and water, and at other times is repre
sented as being successively dissolved by each of those two agents separately.
I think it probable, that the notion of a deluge of fire, as well as of a deluge
of water, originated in the first instance from the scorching effects of the
PkH^Tim. fol. 22, 23.
139
comet; which, by its too near approach to the earth, seems at length, on
the physical principle of attraction, to have dislodged the waters of the
great abyss and thus to have produced the flood.
VII. In the ancient empire of China, we do not find those peculiarly
distinct notices of a general deluge, which may be detected in other coun
tries : yet there is sufficient to prove, that the recollection of that awful event
has been by no means wholly obliterated.
Martinius informs us, that the Chinese writers make frequent mention of
the flood, though they do not enter into the causes which produced it. This
deficiency led that author to doubt, whether they spoke of the Noetic flood,
or of some other inundation peculiar to the realm of China. So far as this
however he ventures to assert, that there is no great dissimilitude between
the two accounts, and that in point of chronology they nearly coincide,
each having taken place (to speak in round numbers) about three thousand
years before the Christian era.
The Chinese acknowledge, that, previous to
the time of Fohi, who from various circumstances appears to be the Noah of
Scripture, their annals do not deserve the name of well-authenticated history.'
It is said, that the Chinese authors frequently speak of two heavens ; the
latter of which succeeded the former. From the description which they give
of them, the first seems to allude to the state of the world before the fall,
and the second to its condition at the deluge. During the period of the first
heaven, a pure pleasure, and a perfect tranquillity, reigned over all nature.
There was neither labour, nor pain, nor sorrmv, nor criminality. Nothing
made opposition to the will of man. The whole creation enjoyed a state of
happiness. Every thing was beautiful ; every thing was good : all beings
were perfect in their kind. In this happy age, heaven and earth employed
their virtues jointly to embellish nature. There was no jarring in the ele
ments, no inclemency in the air ; all things grew without labour; and uni
versalfertility prevailed. The active and passive virtues conspired together,
without any effort or opposition, to produce and perfect the Universe. The
philosophers, who adhered to these ancient traditions, and particularly
Tchouangse, say, that, in the state of the first heaven, man was united
' Mart. Hist. Sin. lib. i. p. 1?.
CHap. iv.
140
boo* hi.
inwardly to the Supreme Reason, and that outwardly he practised all the
works ofjustice. The heart rejoiced in truth, and there was no mixture tf
falshood. The four seasons of the year succeeded each other regularly and
without confusion. There were no impetuous winds and excessive rains.
The sun and the moon, without ever being clouded, furnished a light purer
and brighter than at present. Thefive planets kept on their course without
any inequality. There was nothing, which did harm to man, or which suf
fered any hurt from him ; but an universal ami'y and harmony reigned over
all nature. These descriptions manifestly allude to a state of pristine inno
cence ; and coincide with those notions of a golden age, which have been so
familiar to the bulk of mankind. On the other hand, the account which
they give of the second heaven clearly points out the dreadful convulsion,
which the world experienced at the epoch of the deluge. The pillars of
heaven were broken. The earth shook to its very foundation. The heavens
sank lower towards the north. The sun, the moon, and the stars, changed
their motions. 7 he earth jell to pieces : and the waters inclosed within- its
bosom burst forth with violence, and overflowed it. Man having rebelled
against heaven, the system of the universe was totally disordered. The sun
was eclipsed, the planets altered their course, and the grand harmony of
nature was disturbed. It can scarcely, I think, be doubted, that the great
convulsion of the world, here described, is the deluge. The moial cause of
it is assigned by the Chinese in a very striking manner. All these evils arose
from mans despising the supretre monarch of the Universe. He would needs
dispute about truth and falshood ; and these disputes banished the eternal
reason. He then feed his looks on terrestrial objects, and loved them to
excess: hence arose the passions
He became gradually transformed into
the objects, which he loved ; and the celestial reason entirely abandoned him.
Such was the source of all crimes ; and hence originated those various mise
ries, which arejustly sent by heaven as a punishment of wickedness*
As the deluge was a principal chronological epoch, and as each fictitious
deluge was the commencement of time to the mundane system which it ush
ered in ; both the Greeks, the Hindoos, and the Persians, agreed in bestow* Ramsay on the mythol. of the pagans.

ing the appellation of Time on the great father.
vailed among the Chinese
14]
Much the same notion pre-
/ may assure you, after full inquiry and consi
deration, says Sir William Jones in an address to the Society over which he
so worthily presided, that the Chinese, like the Hindoos, believe this earth,
to have been wholly covered with water, which, in works of undisputed au
thenticity, they describe as Jlowing abundantly, then subsiding, and separat
ing the higher from the lower age of mankind ; that the division of time,
from which their pO( tical history begins, just preceded the appearance of Fohi
on the mountains of Chin; but that the great inundation in the reign of
Yuo was either coiijined to the lowlands of his kingdom (if the whole account
of it be not a Jable), or (if it contain any allusion to the flood of Noah)
has been igmrantly misplaced by the Chinese annalists.1 The truth of the
matter seems to be, that the early history of China, like that of all other
ancient nations, is either mythological or largely blended with mythology1
for the characters of tohi and Yao, like those of the GreekOg/ges and
Deucalion, sufficiently prove them to be equally the patriarch Noah.
VIII. The same belief in the occurrence of an universal deluge prevailed
in the western as well as in the eastern continent.
1. At the time of the conquest of America, the inhabitants of Mechoaca,
Tlascala, and Achagna, still preserved a tradition, that the world was once
overwhelmed by water in consequence of the prevailing wickedness of the age.
The Mechoacans believed, that a priest called Tezpi was preserved along
with his wife and children in a great box ot wood, into which he had also
collected a variety of animals and excellent seeds of every description.
After
the waters had retreated, he sent out a bird named Aura, which did not re
turn. He next sent out several others, which likewise did not return. Last
of all he sent out a bird much smaller than the former ones, but which the
natives esteemed the most.
This soon appeared again with the branch of a
tree in its mouth *

The same tradition is given, with a slight variation, by Herrera.
Accord
ing to this writer, the Mechoacans supposed, that a single family was formerly
* hntoire generate des voyages, apud Howard.
cha*. nr.
142
preserved in an ark from the waters of an universal deluge, and that a num
ber of animals sufficient to stock the new world was saved with them.
Dur
ing the time that they were shut up in the ark, several ravens were sent out,
one of which brought back the branch ot a tree.'
2. The Peruvians, as we are informed by Gomara, believed, in a similar
manner, that it once rained so violently as to inundate all the lower parts of
the country. In consequence of this, an universal destruction of the human
species took place, a few persons only excepted, who escaped into caves
situated on the tops of mountains. To these elevated retirements they had
previously convened a sufficient stock of provisions and a number of living
animals ; lest, when the waters abated, the whole race should become extinct.
As soon as the rain ceased, they sent out two dogs, which returned to them
besmeared with mud and slime. Hence they concluded, that the flood had
not yet subsided. After a certain interval they sent out more dogs, which,
coming back dry, convinced them that the earth was now habitable. Upon
this they left the places into which they had retired, and became the progeni
tors of the present race of men. The number of persons, whom they sup
posed to have been thus saved, is seven. But this is the precise number of
the Noetic family, exclusive of its head : whence that number became so
famous in the diluvian mythology of the ancients. The Peruvian seven are
doubtless the same as the seven Cabiri, the seven Titans, the seven Hindoo
Rishis, and the seven arkite companions of the British Arthur.*
In this account no mention is made of the Ark : but, if we may believe
Herrera, the deficiency was supplied by the more accurate tradition of the
mountaineers of Peru. They affirmed, that all perished in the deluge, ex
cept six persons who were saved in a float From them descended the inha
bitants of that country.1
3. The Brazilians likewise had their account of a general flood. When
that event took place, all mankind perished, one person and his sister only
excepted, who escaped on a Janipata. From this pair the Brazilians de
duced their origin.
Lerius informs us, that he was present at one of their
1 Herrcr. Hist, of Amer. trans, by Stevens. toI. iii. p. 250.

* Gomar. apud Purch. Pilg. b. ix. c. 8, 10.
H'rrer. Hist, of Amer. Dccad. xi. b. i. c. 4.
THE ORIGIN OF PAGAN IDOLATBTT.
U3
assemblies, when, in a solemn chorus, they chaunted a kind of requiem to the

souls of their ancestors. In the course of the song, they did not fail to no
tice the catastrophe of the deluge, in which the whole world perished, except
some of their progenitors who escaped by climbing high trees.'
According to Thevet, the Brazilians on the sea-coast were somewhat more
circumstantial in their detail. The deluge, says he, which these savages talk
go much about, and of which they spoke so often to me, was in their opinion
universal. They say, that Sommay, a Carribee of great dignity, had two
children: the name of the one was Tamendonare; the name of the other,
Ariconte. These were of different dispositions, and therefore mortally hated
each other. The peaceful Tamendonare delighted in the cultivation of the
earth: hut Ariconte, despising agriculture, was solely bent in uar, and
intent on the subjugation of his neighbours not excepting his own brother. It
happened, as this warrior returned one day from the battle, that he brought
to Tamendonare the arm of his enemy, and haughtily reproached him as not
having sufficient courage to defend his wife and children. Tamendonare,
hearing his brother speak thus, xoas much grieved at his pride, and said to
him; If thou wert as valiant as thou boaslest, thou wouUkst have brought
thine enemy entire. Incensed at this reproach, Ariconte threw the arm
against the door of his brothers house : but, at the same instant, the whole
village where they were was carried up into the sky, and they remained on
earth. Tamendonare seeing this, eitherfrom astonishment or passion, struck
the ground so violently, that out of it issued a vast stream of water. The
stream rose so high, that in a short time it reached the hills and mountains,
and seemed to exceed the height of the very clouds. It continued to flow,
untit the earth was entirely covered. The two brothers, solicitous to save
themselves, ascended the highest mountains of the country, and there with
their wives climbed into the trees.
Tamendonare took refuge with one of his
wives in a tree named Pindona; Ariconte with his wife, in a tree named
Genipar. Whilst they were there, in order that they might see if the waters
were abated, Ariconte offered some of thefridt of his tree to his wife, saying,
Break off' a piece of this, and let it Jail doxen. This being done, they knew
' Purch. Pilg. b. ix. c. 5.
CHAp' t*
144
THE ORIGIN OF PAGAN IDOI.ATRT.
that it was not yet time to descend into the vallies, the waters being still very
high. They assert, that in this deluge all mankind and all animals were
drowned, except the two brothers and their wives; from whom ajtcrwards
sprang two different races of people. 1
Besides an express mention of the flood, I think we may discover in the
present legend a manifest allusion to the two different antediluvian families of
Seth and Cain, whose place was supplied after the deluge by the peaceful
and the warlike descendants of Noah.
4. So again, we learn from Peter Martyr, that, when the Spaniards first
discovered Nicaragua, they attempted to persuade the prince of the country
to embrace Christianity. Upon this he immediately inquired, whether those,
who professed the religion of Jesus, had any knowledge of the flood; which,
according to traditional accounts received from his predecessors, had once
covered the whole earth, and had destroyed both men and beasts.*
5. A similar belief prevailed in the Terra-Firuiu of South America.
It
was the tradition of the inhabitants of Castilla del Oro, that, when the uni
versal deluge happened, one man with his wife and children escaped in a
canoe, and that from them the world was repeopled. They further believed,
that there was one lord in heaven, who sent the rain, and who caused the
motions of the celestial bodies; and likewise that there was in heaven a very
beautiful woman with a child.1
From the symbolical mode of worship, which prevailed throughout the
old continent and which the Americans had by no means forgotten,4 I am
inclined to ascribe the last particular to the arkite astronomical superstition.
The ship of Noah was typified by a female; who was supposed to have
emerged from the sea, who was deemed the receptacle and common mother
of the hero-gods, and who nevertheless was elevated to the sphere and iden
tified with the Moon. Of this female Noah was reckoned sometimes the
husband or father, and sometimes the offspring. In the former character,
he was represented as a venerable old man ; in the latter, as a new- bora
'
*
*
*
Cosmog. Univer. vol. iv. 1. xxi. c. 4.

Purch. Pilg. b. viii. c. 14.
Herrcr. Hist, of Amir. Decad. xi. b. i c. 4.
More will be said on this point hereafter, b. iv. c. 4. f X,

infant.
145
Thus the Egyptians, on account of his allegorical birth from the
Ark, depicted him as a child sitting in the calix of the aquatic lotos which
Was a type of the ship Argo or Argha; and yet esteemed him the most an
cient Eros or Cupid. The child in the arms of the woman, as exhibited in
the mythology of the Americans, is the very same as the infant Crishna in
the arms of Devaki, as the infant Horus in the arms of Isis, as the infant
Apollo in the arms of Latona, and as the infant Dionusus in the arms of
Hippa or Ceres.
6. But, according to Herrera, the tradition, preserved by the inhabitants
of Cuba, was yet more definite and particular. He informs us, that they
were not ignorant of the creation of the Universe, and that they possessed
much information concerning the flood. The world, they said, had been
destroyed by water, through the agency of three persons that eame three
several ways. At this time, an old man, foreseeing the deluge, built a great
ship, and went into it with his family and abundance of animals.
After he
had been shut up many days, he sent out a crow, which did not return, but
stayed to feed on the dead bodies : at length however it came back with a
green branch in its mouth. They related moreover, that this ancient man
lay uncovered in consequence of intoxication, and that one of his sons scoffed
at him while in that state, but that the others spread their garments over
him. They added, that they themselves were descended from the former
son; whence they had no raiment to cover their nakedness: and they argued,
that the Spaniards must have sprung from a different son, from one of those
that spread their garments over their father ; because they had both cloathes
and horses. Herrera asserts, that this narrative was communicated by a
Cubau more than seventy years of age to Gabriel de Cabrera, who in a
quarrel had called him dog.
me, since we are brethren ?
Wherefore, he asked in reply, dost thou abuse

Do we not springfrom two sons of him, who
built the great ship to save himselffrom the waters?1

7. Nay even the inhabitants of Otaheite, secluded as they long were from
the rest of the world, preserved no indistinct remembrance of the deluge, of
the patriarch Noah, and of his three sons. They have a tradition, we are
* Herrer. Hist, of Amer. Decad. i. b. ix. c. 11.
Pag. Idol.
vOL. II.
CHAF- ,T.
146
!,
assured, that once in their anger the great gods broke the whole world into
pieces, and that all the islands around them are but little parts of what once
was the great land, of which their own island is the eminent part. They
speak likewise of a man born of the sand of the sea, who married his own
daughter. The daughter bore him three sons and three daughters The
father and mother dying, the brothers said; Let us take our sisters to wife,
and become many.
So men began to multiply upon the earth. 1
This notion of the great father espousing his own daughter is precisely the
same as that, which has prevailed both among the Hindoos and among so
many other ancient nations. Menu or Buddha marries his daughter Ila or
the mundane Ark ; just as the Otaheitean son of the ocean marries her, who
is said to have been born from him. In both cases, the Ark is meant, of
which Noah was esteemed the father, because he was its fabricator : and the
old established pagan theory, that the great father was the demiurge or the
creative artizan of the World, arose from his having been the builder of the
Ark, which was considered as a little World, and which therefore was con
stantly represented by the very same symbols as the larger World.
Thus we find, that there is scarcely a country upon the face of the globe,
in which some recollection of the general deluge and of the preservation of
Noah has not been preserved.
* Missionary Voyage to the south. Pacif. ocean, p. 344.
CHAPTER
V.
Respecting the sacred books.
I. A notion has very generally prevailed, particularly in the east, that there
were certain sacred books, either composed or preserved or recovered by the
great father. Whoever might have been the authors of such volumes, some
of them are still extant: and, whatever may have been the precise age of
their composition, this at least is certain, that we may trace up to very high
antiquity a belief in the existence of writings as old as or even older than the
deluge. The books in question appear to have contained treatises, partly
theological, partly historical, partly ethical, and partly physical.
1. In the Chaldean account of the deluge, as extracted from Berosus, we
are told, that the god Cronus enjoined Xisuthrus to commit to writing a
history of the beginning, procedure, and final conclusion, of all things,
down to the era of the flood ; and directed him to bury the manuscript secure
ly in the city of the Sun at Sippara or Sisparnis. The command of the deity
was obeyed : and afterwards, when the children of Xisuthrus migrated from
Armenia to Babylon, they found the writings in the precise spot where they
had been deposited. '
Syncell. Chronog. p. 30.
148
THE ORIGIN OF PAGAN IDOLATRf.
2. There was a similar opinion among the Jews, which they most proba
bly adopted during the Babylonian captivity, moulding it agreeably to their
own humour. Josephus tells us, that the children of Seth, who were great
astronomers, knowing that the world was to be successively destroyed by
water and by fire, engraved their discoveries on two pillars, the one of brick
and the other of stone; that so their writings, being committed to such mate
rials, might escape the violence of either catastrophe. He adds, that one of
the pillars still remained in the land of Seriad. *
3. This legend is palpably the same as that of Manetho, even to the very
name of Seriad : and Manetho's tale is evidently but a modification of that
respecting the books of Xisuthrus. Manetho, as preserved by Syncellus,
pretends to have extracted his history from certain inscriptions, engraved be
fore the deluge by the first Thoth on columns, which were erected in the land
of Seriad.* The Thoth therefore of Manetho is the Seth of Josephus : and
both of these are the same as the Xisuthrus of the Chaldeans ; or rather, to
speak more agreeably to pagan notions, they are the same as the great father
successively appearing as Adam, as Enoch, and as Noah. Thus we are
brought to the conclusion, that the celebrated books of Thoth or Hermes
Trismegistus are no other than the books, which the Babylonians ascribed to
Xisuthrus : the fables differ only respecting the mode, in which they were
originally committed to writing.
4. The Egyptian Thoth is the Phenician Taut or Taautus : and accord
ingly this personage is also represented as being the author of books coeval
with the deluge. Sanchoniatho makes him contemporary with the seven Cabiri and their father Sydyk, who were the builders of the first ship, and who
consecrated the relics of the ocean at Berytus.
He was contemporary there
fore with the builders of the Argo or Argha, and flourished at the period of
the flood. He was, I believe, the very same as Sydyk or Noah himself;
though in the Phenician genealogy he is said to be the son of Misor or
Mizraim. Sanchoniatho informs us, that he employed the Cabiri as his
amanuenses, and enjoined them to write down the early history which he
had composed. From this history Sanchoniatho professes to have borrowed
1 Joseph. Ant. Jud. 1$. Lftl
1 Syncell. Chronog. p. 40.
THE ORIGIN OF PAGAN IDOIATRY.
149
bis mythological narrative, just as Manetho pretends to have copied from the
pillars of Thoth. *
5. As Thoth or Taut is the same as Xisuthrus on the one hand ; so he is
the same likewise as Mahabad, Buddha, or Menu, on the other hand.
Hence we still find certain ancient books ascribed to each of these nearly
allied characters in the several regions where they are venerated.
(1.) Mahabad or the great Buddha was reputed to be the first monarch of
Iran and of the whole earth. Like the Indian Menu, he was the head of a
series of fourteen persons, each bearing his name. And, like Menu, he was
thought to have been the original institutor of the four castes. Mahabad
therefore is the great transmigrating father, or Adam reappearing in the
person of Noah. Now the Persians supposed, that he received from the
creator, and promulgated among men, a sacred book in a heavenly language;
to which Mohsan, the Musulman author of the Dabistan, gives the Arabic
title of Desatir or Regulations. *
(2.) Much the same fable is attached to the legend of Buddha.
As there
are many Mahabads, so there are many Buddhas, or, to speak more properly,
numerous manifestations of the great father under the name of Buddha.
Among these, the first Buddha is Adam : while Buddha Gautama is un
doubtedly Noah ; because he is described, as flourishing at the period of the
deluge, and as espousing Ha or the mundane Ark. With respect to this last
personage we are told, that, at the time when the earth poured forth an uni
versal inundation to assist him against the Asoorsor impenitent antediluvians,
five holy scriptures descended from above; which confer the powers of know
ledge and retrospection, the ability of accomplishing the impulses of the heart,
and the means of carrying into effect the words of the mouth.'
(3.) The whole of the character of Buddha proves him to be no other than
Menu : and the diluvian Buddha is clearly the same as the diluvian Menu.
This appears, not only from the general circumstance of their being each
ascribed to the era of the flood, but likewise from a particular point which
indisputably establishes their proper identity.
Menu is said to have espoused
' Euseb. Praep. Evan. lib. i. c. 10.

3 Asiat. Res, vol. ii. p. 386.
150
THE ORIGIN OF FAGAN IDOLATRY.
his own daughter Ila : and Buddha is also said to have espoused Ila, who is
described as the daughter of one that was preserved in an ark when the rest
of mankind perished.
Buddha therefore and Menu, equally espousing one
allegorical female, must be the same person ; who, under the name of MenuSatyavrata, is literally represented as having been saved in a large ship at
the time of the deluge. Now, as the first Persian Mahabad received from
heaven a sacred book of regulations ; so the first Menu is fabled to have left
a book of regulations or divine ordinances, which the Hindoos hold equal
to the Vedas, and the language of which they believe to be that of the gods.1
The Vedas constitute their other sacred books. These, we are told in the
fable of the first Avatar, flowed from the lips of Brahma ; but they were
stolen from him by the demon Hayagriva, while he slumbered at the close of
a prior world.
nate in a fish.
For the purpose of recovering them, Vishnou became incar

Under that form he preserved Menu in an ark, while the
whole world was inundated by a deluge : and, when the waters retired, he
slew the demon, and recovered the holy volumes from the bottom of the
ocean.
6. What the Vedas and the Institutes are to the Hindoos, the laws of
Minos were to the ancient Cretans. I think with Sir William Jones, that
Menu and Minos are clearly the same person. Consequently, in the laws of
Minos we again recognize those holy books, which the pagans deemed coeval
with or prior to the deluge.
7. Menu or Buddha, under these precise oriental titles, was equally vene
rated by the Celts of Britain : and here again we find the same belief in the
existence of books no less ancient than the flood. The Druids styled them
the books of the Pheryllt and the writings of Prydain or Hu : and I hesi
tate not to denominate them the British Vedas. Ceridwen consults them
before she prepares the mysterious cauldron, which shadows out the awful
catastrophe of the deluge : and Taliesin, while he speaks of them as the
first object of anxiety to the bards, declares, that, should the waves again
disturb their foundation, he would again conceal them deep in the cell of the
holy sanctuary which represented the interior of the Ark.*
Here he evidently
1 Asiat. Res. vol. ii. p. 59* Taliesin's Min Dinbych. Vide supra book iii. c. 4. IV. I.
151
alludes to a concealment of those sacred volumes during the prevalence of

the flood, like that of the writings of the Chaldean Xisuthrus. 1
*,
8. A similar belief in the existence of such books prevails also among the
Mohammedans : and they doubtless, I think, derived it from the same pagan
source as the Jews. According to a Musulman writer cited by Stanley,
Abraham found among the Sabeans the long-lost chest of Adam, which
contained the books of that patriarch and likewise those of Seth and Edris
or Enoch. How the chest was supposed to have been preserved during the
time of the deluge, does not appear.* The Mohammedans tell us, that
the books of Adam, Seth, Enoch, and Abraham, are now entirely lost :'
but the persuasion, that they once existed, serves to shew how widely the
notion which I am now considering had extended itself.
II. This universal belief affords an additional argument in support of the
opinion, that the various systems of pagan mythology originated from a com
mon source.
Whether any books of antediluvian science and theology were preserved
by Noah in the Ark, I shall not pretend to determine : yet I can see nothing
very improbable in the supposition, that he may have delivered to his posterity
a volume or volumes replete with the treasured knowledge of a former world.
Of such relics the pretended sacred books of the Gentiles may have been
imitations. They must however, in that case, have been corrupt imitations :
for it is almost superfluous to say, that the Indian Vedas, the Institutes of
Menu, and the Phenician history of Sanchoniatho, could not have been re
ceived from Noah in their present state. Yet the general prevalence of
these imitations proves their high antiquity: for the same notion of certain
sacred books ascribed to the great father could not have prevailed in regions
so widely separated from each other, unless the inhabitants of those regions
had derived it, together with their system of theology, from a common cen
tre. Hence, for the first corrupt imitation of the books of Noah, if in
deed it were an imitation and if such books ever actually existed, we seem
to be referred to the era of Nimrod, when state policy originally corrupted
' These books are styled in the CaJair Ceridwen the books of the ruler of the mount : by
whom, as appears from the general connection of the poem, was clearly meant Noah on the
summit of Ararat. Vide supra book iii. c. 4. IV. 1.
* Stanley's Hist, of Chald. Philos. p. 36.
1 Scott's Preface to Arab. Nights' Entertainments.
'
152
'"
the patriarchal religion by changing it into the worship of demon-gods.

From this debased imitation, which can scarcely be ascribed to a later pe
riod, flowed, I apprehend, the various sacred volumes of Chaldea, Egypt,
Phenicia, Persia, Hindostan, Crete, and Britain.
If any antediluvian writings were really preserved, they would obviously
be preserved in the Ark : for it is needless to say, that the Chaldean legend
of burying them under ground, the Hindoo legend of their being lost at the
bottom of the ocean and afterwards recovered, and the Egyptian legend of
their being left engraved on two pillars, are alike absurd. Far more rational
is the Druidical tradition, that they were saved in the cell of the arkite
sanctuary, when the waves of the ocean extended themselves on every side.
Yet, unless I greatly mistake, some vestiges of the literal matter of fact (I
speak on the supposition of the existence of such books) may still be traced
by comparing together the Hindoo and Babylonian accounts.
1. We are told in the legend of Xisuthrus, that the place, where these
primitive writings were buried, was a certain city named Sippara or SispartU8 : and we learn from the legend of Satyavrata, that Vishnou, who re
covered the lost writings, transformed himself into a fish denominated Saphari. Such a coincidence of names in relating what is certainly the
same history can hardly be esteemed casual : I conclude therefore without
hesitation, that Sippara and Saphari must both have received their appella
tions from the same circumstance and therefore with the same idea. Now,
if the writings in question were actually preserved, they must have been
preserved in the interior of the symbolical fish Saphari, or by the sovereign
prince (as the Hindoos speak) who dwelt in the belly of the fish, that is to
say, in the Ark ; not underground in the city Sippara. What then is the
import of the term ? The Hindoos may have naturalized it : but, since it
occurs in Chaldea as well as in Hindostan, there is at least as much proba
bility that the word is Babylonic as that it is Sanscrit. I think with Bochart,
that, when viewed in connection with the story relative to it, Sippara is
plainly derived from Sepher which denotes a book. The antediluvian books
were deposited in the mystic fish, from them denominated Saphari : after
the flood, was built the town of Sippara, so called in honour of them ; just
as the towns of Theba, Argos, and Berytus, received their names from
153
Theba, Argha, and Baris or Barit: hence the books, which were really pre-
CHAP' v.
served in thefish, were fabled to have been preserved in the city.

The town mentioned by Berosus appears to have been situated in the
. .
neighbourhood of Babylon:1 and some place it near mount Sephar, which

Moses styles a mountain of the east ; though Wells fixes that mountain yet
more eastward, and Bochart places it in Arabia Felix.1 Whatever may
have been the true scite of the hill, it was, I believe, an arkite mountain :
and, like Sippara, it received its name from the sacred antediluvian writings.
It is probable, that there were several mount Sephars, just as there were
many mountains of the Moon : for, as the descendants of Noah carried
with them in all directions memorials of the deluge ; so, wherever they set
tled, they consecrated the loftiest hill as the mountain of that floating lu
nette which was thought to have preserved the holy volumes. This humour
will account for the existence of other cities of the book, as well as the Ba
bylonian Sippara: for they, who called themselves Sepharim or Book-men,
were as much attached to their name as the Ionim, the Arghim, the Areadim, the Thebim, the Albanim, or the Baritim. One of these biblic cities
we seem to recognize in the town of the Sepharvaim: if indeed it be not the
same as the Sippara of Berosus ; which is rendered probable by the names
of the other Babylonian cities, mentioned along with it by the author of the
second book of kings.'
Another of them we find in Palestine, within the
limits of the tribe of Judah : for we are told by the writer of Joshua, that,
in ancient times, Debir was called Kirjath-Sepher or the city of the book*
This then was its primitive name : but the Israelites called it Debir, the im
port of which is nearly similar. What those books were from which it re
ceived its appellation, we may collect from its Chaldee name Kirjath-Archi.
Bochart thinks, that this signifies the city of the archives : but I am rather
inclined to believe, that it means the city of the Arkim or Arkites, who were
1 Bochart. Phalog. lib. i. c. 4. p. 22.
1 Gen. x. 30. Wells's Geog. of O. Test. part. i. c. iii. sect. 3. IS. Boch. Phaleg. lib. ii.
c. 30. p. 144, 145, 146.
* 2 Kings xvii. 24. Ptolemy calls it Sipphara. See Wells's Geog. of the Old Test. vol.
ii. p. 91, 92.
4 Josh. xv. 25. See also Judg. i. 11, 12.
Pag. Idol.
vol. it.
U
154
book in.
otherwise distinguished by the name of Sepharim.1
It was likewise called
Kirjath-Sannah or the city qf the Sun :* for San, Zan, or Zoan, was one of
the oriental names of that luminary ; whence the Greek Zen and the Eng
lish Sun.1 I take it, that the great father was worshipped there in conjunc
tion with the Sun : and it is probable, that the antediluvian writings were
thought to have been preserved in that town as well as in the Babylonian
Sippara; for the same spirit of local appropriation, that fixed the appulseof
the Ark to so many different regions, would claim for as many different cities
the honour of having preserved the sacred books.
Bokhara signifies the country of the book.
It is said, that the word
If this be the case, I should
have no doubt that the same holy book was still alluded to in the appella
tion. The Bactrians were Scythians or Chasas : and their territory forms
a part of that high mountainous tract, which coincides with the Indian Meru, and which by the Brahmens is esteemed the land both of Paradise and
of the Ark.
- 2. From these observations we may, I think, venture to conclude, that
the fable of the sacred books existed prior to the invasion of Palestine by
the Israelites : for, when they made themselves masters of that country,
they found there a city, which bore the very same appellation as the Baby
lonian town, where the sacred writings were thought to have been depo
sited before the deluge; and, since the one clearly received its name from
those writings, the presumption is that the other did also. We may like
wise conclude, that Berosus is perfectly accurate in representing the fable as
known to the Babylonians from the earliest period of their history : because
we find, that, long previous to the days of Moses, a celebrated mountain
of the east was known by the name of mount Sephar or the mountain of the
book. Such appellations plainly refer to the fable ; and therefore prove its
existence at the time when they were bestowed. But, if the fable be older
' Bochart. Phaleg. lib. i. c. 4. p. 22.
* Compare Josh. xv. 15. with ver. 47.
3 Thus we read of a town called Beth-Shan, because San or the Sun was worshipped in its
principal beth or temple. 1 Sam. xxxi. 10. I believe, that neither Shan nor Sannah are
Hebrew words any more than On ; though they have all been very absurdly translated, as if
such were indisputably the case.
.
155
than the time of Moses, I see not what date we can reasonably assign to it
except that of the apostasy at Babel.
3. There is a curious part of the fable, as it is sometimes detailed, which
yet remains to be accounted for : and the desired explanation will be fur
nished by the mythology of Egypt.
Typhon, though properly the deluge, was occasionally confounded or ra
ther identified with the god of the deluge. Hence he was sometimes pro
nounced the same as Osiris, and denominated Priapus or Peor-Apis : and
hence likewise he bore another appellation, which (strictly speaking) did
not belong to him. He was called Seth, and by that name was worshipped
in Egypt under the symbol of an ass.1 But Seth, as a masculine title,
which was variously expressed Set, Siton, Said, Saidi, Soth, Zeuth, Talk,
and Thoth, was a name of the great father : while Setha, as a feminine title,
which was also variously expressed Sita, Saida, Sida, Sidda, Sidee, Sito,
Shittah, and Titea, was a name of the great mother. From a misprision of
this appellation, various traditions, which properly belong to the deluge,
have been strangely misapplied to Seth the son of Adam. Thus, as we
have seen, Josephus tells us, that the children of Seth were great astrono
mers, and that they engraved their discoveries on two pillars in the land of
Seriad, in order that they might escape the ravages of a deluge either of fire
or of water : and thus the Mohammedans have a notion, that some of the
sacred antediluvian writings were composed by Seth. In both these legends,
Seth, I conceive, is not the son of Adam ; but Menu or Xisuthrus or
Thoth (as Seth was sometimes written), to whom the sacred books which
were preserved from the flood are properly ascribed.
It is worthy of note, that Josephus further informs us, that the pillars of
Seth were erected near mount Siderus or (as Glycas writes the word) Sidirus. This is not a Greek name, neither has it any thing to do with iron.
Siderus or Sid-Ira was an arkite mountain, one of the high places of the
great father and the great mother or of the lunar Seth and Sida : hence the
notion of the writings of Seth being engraved on two pillars, those primeval
* Plut.de hid. p. 367.
Epiph. adv. Haer. vol. ii. p. 1093.
CB*P- v<
156
book in.
symbols of Thoth or Hermes, prevailed in its neighbourhood.
The votaries
of Seth called themselves, as was usual, after the name of their god, Sethim,
Satim, Settim, or Shittim : and they are those children of Sheth, for the
worshippers of the great father rightly claimed to be his descendants, whom
the star of Jacob was destined to destroy or spiritually eradicate, when it
hould smite the corners of Moab.1
* , .
1 Numb, xxiv. 17".
CHAPTER
VI.
Pagan accounts of the deluge, as erroneously confined by local

appropriation to particular regions.
Many, as we have seen, are the traditions of an universal deluge : but,

in addition to these, the ancient pagans have preserved several of an appa
rently more limited description. By an act of local appropriation not diffi
cult to be accounted for, they have frequently confined the flood to a parti
cular region, and have represented Noah as a very ancient prince of that
particular region. But, when we find in various parts of the world tales
of a local flood which at once closely resemble each other and bear a strong
general similitude to the flood of Noah, it appears to me more reasonable to
conclude, that they are for the most part corrupted narratives of the same
event, than that they really speak, of local deluges posterior in point of time
to the universal deluge. Yet it is not impossible, that in some cases the
two may have been blended together, and that the history of the general
flood may have been ingrafted upon a partial flood. It is not impossible,
that the Euxine sea, once a lake, may have burst its bounds and poured its
redundant waters through the cleft of the Bosphorus ; it is not impossible,
that the Mediterranean sea may, in a similar manner, perhaps in the way
of cause and effect, have broken for itself a passage into the ocean, and
have thus discharged the streams which it had previously received from the
158
book m.
Euxine.'

But, however this may be, the narratives of such events have
usually been decorated with circumstances peculiar to the general deluge :

which indeed was the natural and almost inevitable consequence of an an
cient method of symbolizing the Noetic flood.
In perhaps every region of the world from Hindostan in the east to Bri
tain in the west, sacred lakes, sacred tumuli, and sacred islands, were emi
nently venerated. The lake typified the deluge : the tumulus represented
mount Ararat : and the navicular island, sometimes deemed a floating one
and often (I believe) no other than a large wooden raft covered with turf,
which reposed on the bosom of the lake, was considered as a fit symbol of
the Ark.' But each of these, agreeably to the complex nature of old my
thology, had a yet further reference. The lake shadowed out the pristine
lake of Paradise, from which issued the four holy rivers. The tumulus ex
hibited the mountain of Paradise, which geographically coincided with the
land of Ararat. And the island was not more a type of the Ark, than of
the Earth. The former was the Microcosm, the latter the Megacosm, of
the ancient pagans : and these two Worlds, the smaller and the greater,
were in idea perpetually blended together, and were ever represented by the
same hieroglyphics.
The Earth, like the Ark, was a ship floating on the
ocean ; and the mysterious vessel Argo or Argha or Theba indifferently

symbolized each : the Ark, like the Earth, was a floating world, though a
world in miniature ; and the two were alike typified by the mundane egg,
the sacred circle or rotiform inclosure, the aquatic lotos, and the navicular
island. From such ideas we may deduce the form, which several of the diluvian legends were made to assume. Instead of saying, that the waters
rushed from the central abyss and overflowed the shell of the earth'; the
hierophant taught, in the established phraseology of the Mysteries, that the
lake broke down its mounds, and that the island was submerged beneath
the waves.
Now it is obvious, that these speculations would naturally cause the his
tory of the Noetic deluge to be attached to any flood which may have been
* Some such convulsion appears to be indicated, in the case of the Euxine, by present na
tural phenomena. See Clarke's Travels, vol. i,
159
produced by the bursting of the Euxine lake, if indeed such an event ever
really happened ; more especially when we recollect the generally prevalent
doctrine of periodical inundations and successive similar worlds. Perhaps
however it may be thought, that the very converse of this is the truth : that
the actual bursting of the Euxine lake may have been the cause, why lakes
became symbols of the deluge ; not that the circumstance of lakes being
symbols of the deluge caused the history of that event to be attached to the
bursting of the Euxine. This conjecture, though specious, is certainly un
tenable. We find lakes employed to typify the flood in every quarter of the
globe. The notion therefore is too general to have been borrowed from a
particular local event. In other words, the existence of the notion must
have been coeval with the rise of pagan mythology, and must have preceded
any supposed disruption of the southern bank of the Euxine : consequently,
it could not have originated from the bursting of that once vast lake.
In accordance then with the mystic phraseology of the hierophant, we
are told in various ancient legends, sometimes that an island sank beneath
the sea : sometimes that a lake broke through its mounds, and overflowed the
neighbouring country ; and sometimes, by an union of the two ideas, that
the bursting of the lake was the cause of the submersion of the island. Oc
casionally the deluge is represented as being itself universal, though its wa
ters flow from a lake situated in some particular country : and it may be
added, that the Greeks have various stories of partial floods not marked by
any of these characteristics.
I. Since the Ark and the Earth were equally typified by an island, and
since (as we learn from Theopompus) it was an ancient sacred article of
faith that Europe and Asia and Africa were each an island
we may natur
ally expect, that the submersion of an island would be employed to describe

the submersion of the Earth at the time of the flood.
* This matter is said to have been revealed to the Phrygian Midas by Silenus. Theopom.
apud ilian. Hist. rer. var. lib. iii. c. 18. Virgil, with strict propriety, exhibits Silenus in the
character of a mystagogue, discoursing learnedly on the wonders of the creation and tbe
deluge. Eclog. vi.
w*- *-
160
1.

Of these legends one of the most curious is that of the island At*
lands.
According to Plato, when Solon was in Egypt, a learned priest of that
country informed him, that there was once, at the entrance of the main
ocean beyond the pillars of Hercules, an island larger than all Asia and
Africa. The gods dividing the earth among them, this vast island, which
was called Atlantis, fell to the lot of Neptune. In it that deity found a
single man and woman, Euenor and his wife Leucippe, who sprang from
the dust of the earth : and he espoused their only daughter Clito, who bore
to him ten sons. Among these ten children Neptune divided his dominions.
Atlas was the eldest of them, and gave his name to the island : and .he,
and his posterity after him, long reigned there with much glory and felicity.
As for the country itself, it was a most delightful region ; and its fertility
and opulence were never equalled.
The inhabitants were remarkable for
their wisdom and virtue : and the ten princes of its ten provinces, anxious
to promote the interests of religion, were wont to assemble in each fifth and
sixth year alternately, to deliberate on the common weal and to offer sacri
fices to the gods. But this original purity of manners was gradually cor
rupted ; the Atlantians became men of blood and rapine ; and a lawless am
bition instigated them to acts of violence and aggression. Not satisfied with
possessing a rich and beautiful country, and inflated with the pride of un
bounded prosperity, they began to attempt the conquest of their neighbours.
First they subdued Africa and all Europe as far as Tyrrhenia ; and next they
invaded Egypt and Greece. The Athenians alone resisted, and in the end
triumphed over them : for Jupiter, enraged at their degeneracy, resolved
upon their destruction. A tremendous earthquake took place, and a vast
inundation followed it.
In one night, both the warriors who were engaged
in the conquest of Greece, and the island Atlantis itself, were swallowed up
by the waters.
The particular manner of the island's submersion was as follows.
The
Mediterranean sea, at that time a large lake without any inlet into the ocean,
was swelled above its usual level by an extraordinary influx of the great ri
vers which disembogue themselves into it. The weight of the waters, as
l6l
sisted by the earthquake, burst through the isthmus which then connected
Europe and Africa ; and by their sudden escape overwhelmed those exten
sive tracts of land, which once constituted the island Atlantis.1
As far as I am able to judge, this curious tradition sufficiently explains
itself. Indeed even M. Bailly, in the midst of his laborious attempt to
prove the Atlantians a very ancient northern people far anterior either to the
Hindoos or the Phenicians or the Egyptians, cites a legend preserved by
Cosinas Indico-Pleustes, which may additionally serve to teach us, who this
primitive nation really were.
Their claims to superior antiquity are indis
putable, though not exactly on the principles of the French philosophist.
The Atlantians were in fact the antediluvians ; and the submersion of their
country was no other than the submersion of the old world : hence the tra
dition of Cosmas rightly teaches us, that Noah formerly inhabited the island
Atlantis, but that at the time of the deluge he was carried in an Ark to that
continent which has ever since been occupied by his posterity.* This voy
age of the great father was not from an imaginary island in the Atlantic
ocean to the eastern continent ; but from the old world, the real island At
lantis, to that new world which his descendants now inhabit. And with
this opinion, whatever be the fate of the legend preserved by Cosmas, the
whole tradition respecting that supposed maritime region will be found mi
nutely to correspond.
In the story, as it is told by Plato, the primitive man and woman, sprung
from the earth, are plainly Adam and Eve ; while in the ten children of Nep
tune, as in the ten patriarchal lords or Pitris of the Hindoos, we recognize
the ten antediluvian patriarchs through the line of Seth.
The lawless vio
lence of the degenerate Atlantians is the lawless violence of the scriptural

giants : and the deluge, that overwhelms the country of the former, is the
deluge, that inundated the old world and swept away the latter. The fic
tion of the invasion of Africa and Greece and of the successful resistance
made by the Athenians has been patched to the genuine legend from a totally
different history.
It relates, I believe, to those early and violent irruptions
1 Plat. Tim. fol. 22. et infra. Strab. Gcog. lib. ii. p. 102.
1 Bailly's Lettres sur l'Atlantide. p.36l.
Pag. Idol.
vOL. II.
T,-
162
of the Scythic or Gothic tribes ; which established the dominion of the Shep
herd-kings in Egypt, which founded the empire of the African Ethiopia,
and which planted the Chasas under the name of Atlantians in the western
region of Mauritania.
From these originated the whole legend of the is
land : and they related the fortunes of their antediluvian forefathers in the
phraseology of those Mysteries, which under Nimrod they first invented at
Babylon. Hence it is, that we find Atlas and the Atlantians so well known
in such very different quarters of the world : the same enterprizing race,
who were the authors of the daring apostasy in the plains of Shinar, not only
extended their empire generally over the other descendants of Noah, but like
wise in a separate state planted their colonies equally in Africa, in Europe,
in Phenicia, and in various parts of the interior of Asia.1 Atlas himself, like
Cronus and Menu, is the transmigrating great father. The many points of
resemblance between Adam and Noah produced their systematic deification
under the same title. Atlas commonly appears as the latter ; and sometimes
his character melts into that of Enoch, considered as one of the various
manifestations of Buddha or Menu : but here, as an antediluvian and as the
eldest of the ten Atlantians, he is certainly the former. We are by no
means, as I have just observed, to confine him to Africa and the fabled is
land Atlantis. The priests of Egypt were well acquainted with his history :
the Phenicians, who were of the same race as the Shepherd-kings, have con
spicuously introduced the astronomer Atlas into their mythology : the Greeks,
who received their theology from the equally Scythic Pelasgi, Phenicians,
and Pallic Egyptians, claimed him as their own, and reported him to have
been the first king of Arcadia : and the Celts or Hyperboreans, who mi
grated from Asia under a Scythic nobility and priesthood, no less asserted
him to have tenanted their northern country, where in the usual spirit of lo
cal appropriation they likewise placed the Paradisiaco-diluvian gardens of
the Hesperides.* He was famous alike in Britain and throughout the whole
east under the name of Idris or Edris or Atri : and the mountain, on
1 These matters will hereafter be discussed at large, b. vi. c. 1. I, III, IV, V. c. 3. VI.
c. 4, 5.
* Sanchon. apud Euseb. Praep. Evan. lib. i. c. 10. Dion. Italic. Ant. Rom. lib. i. c.6l.
Apollod. Bibl. lib. ii. c. 5. 11.
16$
which he pursued his astronomical researches, whether situated in Wales or

in Africa or in Cashgar, is but a transcript of the geographically coincident
mountains of Eden and Ararat.
2. There was another legend of an exactly similar nature respecting the
island Samothrace, so famous for the Orgies of the Cabiric or diluvian herogods.
We are told by Diodorus Siculus, that the inhabitants of that country had
preserved an account of a great deluge, which once overwhelmed their is
land, and which they deemed of higher antiquity than any other local flood.
It was thought to have been produced by the bursting of the Euxine sea,
which previously was a large lake.1 Nonnus represents this deluge as being
the third that had taken place : but Tzetzes informs us, that it was the very
same as that from which Deucalion escaped ; an opinion, that accords far
better with the legend of the Samothracians, who considered it as being of
the very highest antiquity.1
If then this flood was the flood of Deucalion,
it must likewise be the flood of Noah ; or at least, if we suppose that the

Euxine ever really burst its bounds, a local flood must have been decorated
with incidents which belonged only to the general flood : because every part
of the history of Deucalion clearly proves his identity with the scriptural
Noah. The Greeks, it is, true, claimed Deucalion for themselves, and laid
the scene of his deluge and of his appulse in Thessaly and on mount Par
nassus : but he was likewise feigned to have landed on various other moun
tains ; he was reputed to be a Scythian, as well as a Thessalian ; and the
whole story of his escape was preserved with such a degree of accuracy by
the Hellenic Syrians of Hierapolis, as to leave no room to doubt of his being
the same as that patriarch. But enough has already been said respecting this
ancient personage.
'
When Samothrace was inundated, the hero-god preserved from destruc
tion is said to have been Dardanus : a"nd, as the imagery of the deluge it
self, namely the bursting of a lake and the submersion of an island, was
borrowed from the Mysteries ; so likewise was the peculiar mode of his pre' Diod. Bibl. lib. v. p. 322.
4 Nonn. Dionys. lib. iii. Tzctz. in Lycoph. rer. 72, 73.
CHA*.
164
book hi.
servation.

According to Lycophron and his scholiast Tzetzes, he made his
escape to the opposite shore of Asia in a leathern coracle, and his voyage is
compared to the swimming of a wild boar across the Danube.1 Neither of
these matters are devoid of signification. Aspirants , among the Hyperbo
rean or Celtic tribes, whose priesthood and nobility at least seem to have
been of the same family as the Pelasgic or Pallic or Scythic aborigines of
Greece, were wont to be initiated into the diluvian Mysteries by suffering
themselves to be inclosed in leathern coracles and thus boldly attempting to
cross an arm of the sea:1 and in those same Orgies the boar and the sow
make a very conspicuous figure as sacred symbolical animals; the latter
clearly typifying a ship which ship was the Ark, and the former the herodivinity of that ship.' Now Samothrace was celebrated for its attachment to
the Cahiric Mysteries : whence Nonnus and Lycophron represent Dardanus, as abdicating the sceptre of the Cabiri and as leaving the realm of the
Corybantes, when he escaped from that island.* And these Mysteries were
the very same as those, which were established among the Celtic tribes : for
Mnaseas, as I have already observed, informs us, that Ceres, Bacchus, and
Proserpine, were reckoned in the number of the Samothracian Cabiri ; Dionysius asserts, that the Orgies of Bacchus were celebrated in the British
isles ; and Artemidorus yet more definitely declares, that in an islet close to
Britain Ceres and Proserpine were venerated with rites similar to those of
Samothrace.5 The accuracy of such assertions has recently been shewn in
a very curious manner by Mr. Davies from the remains of the ancient bards
themselves : whence it appears, that the Druidical worship was in fact the
Cabiric, and that the great gods of Samothrace were precisely the same both
in rites and in character as those of Britain. Accordingly we shall soon
find, that the mode, in which the Celtic Brahmens described the flood, mi
nutely corresponds with the legends respecting the islands Samothrace, and
Atlantis.
' I.ycoph. Cassand. ver. 7282. Tzctz. in loc.
1 Davies's Mythol. of Brit. Druids, p. l6l, 162, 163.
3 Ibid. p. 426, 430. Dissert, on Cabiri. vol. i. p. 220224.
* Nonn. Dionys. lib. iii. Lyc. Cass. ver. 78.
' Mnas. apud Schol. in Apoll. Argon, lib. i. ver. 917. Dionys. Perieg. ver. 565 5"4.
Strab. Geog. lib. iv. p. 198.
16"5
As the former of these islands thus connects itself with the old Druidical
worship of Britain, on the one hand ; so, on the other hand, it no less con
nects itself with the famous tradition which details the sinking of the latter
island. To say nothing of the palpable similarity of the two legends, the
submersion of Atlantis by the bursting of the Mediterranean sea and the
submersion of Samothrace by the bursting of the Euxine sea, the fabulous
Dardanus was himself by reputed descent an Atlantian : whence it will fol
low, that, as the gods of the imaginary island beyond the pillars of Hercules
are immediately connected with the gods of Egypt, Greece, and Phenicia ; so are they equally connected with the hero-deities of the Iliensians.
Dardanus is said to have been the grandson of Atlas ; which is the identical
relationship of Deonaush to Atri or Idris, the oriental and British Atlas. We
may conclude therefore, that Dardanus is the same as Deonaush or Dionusus; who was one of the Samothracian Cabiri, and who was similarly be
lieved to have been set afloat on the sea inclosed in an ark.
In fact, the
two names are no less identical than the two persons : for Dar-Danus is Deo
naush or Danaus united in composition with Daru, which signifies a Druid
or Brahmen. There is a story, that Dardanus had already escaped from a
deluge in Arcadia, the fictitious kingdom of his grandfather Atlas, previous
to that in Samothrace.1 This however is a mere local reduplication of the
same event. Since Dardanus escaped from the universal deluge of Deuca
lion, and since Deucalion alone escaped from that deluge, Dardanus must
be the same as Deucalion under a different name : in other words, he must
be Noah ; a conclusion exactly agreeing with that, which recently identified
him with Deonaush, Dionusus, and Danaus.
The whole genealogy in
deed of Dardanus is purely mythological : and, in the pretended line of

the early Trojan kings, it is easy to trace the connection of the Atlantian,
the Egyptian, the Phenician, the Grecia'n, the Italian, the Celtic, and the
Indo-Scythic, superstitions. The descent of this fabulous prince of Arca
dia, Samothrace, and Troas, is as follows : Atlas ; Electra, who was es
teemed a Pleiad or mystic arkite dove ; Dardanus ; Ilus and Erichthonius ;
Tros ; Ilus and Assaracus ; Laomedon ; Priam.*
' Dionys. Halic. Ant. Rom. lib. i. c. 6l.
* Tzetz. in Lycoph. ver. 25. Apollod. Bibl. lib. iii. c; II.
Now, as we have already
166
book in.
THE ORIGIN O* TAGAN IDOLATRY.
seen, Atlas was celebrated throughout the whole world; and was placed,
even by name, both in the island Atlautis, in Arcadia, in Phenicia, and in
the north of Europe among the Hyperborean Celts. His daughter Electra,
though she bore Dardanus to Jupiter, is said to have been the wife of Coritus king of Hetruria, by whom she was also the mother of Jasius or Jasion. This Jasion is fabled, in one legend, to have been slain by Darda
nus in a quarrel respecting the succession to the kingdom of Hetruria, who
was thereupon banished from Italy ; whence he migrated to Samothrace, and
afterwards synchronically with the flood of Deucalion to Troas. But, in
others, he is represented, as the own brother of Dardanus ; as the consort
of Cybele or the great mother ; as the parent by Ceres, who is equally the
great mother, of Plutus, who (according to Cicero, Fulgentius, and Julius
Firmicus) is the same as Pluto or the infernal Osiris ; as the father of the
Samothracian Cabiri ; as having been struck with lightning for attempting the
chastity of Ceres, and yet as the favourite and husband of that goddess
and as the first agriculturist ; as translated to heaven ; and as the father-inlaw of the Cilician Theba or the Ark, in consequence of her allegorical
nuptials with his son Corybas.1 As for Ilus, there is a legend of his being
conducted by a cow to the scite of Ilium so precisely resembling the legend
of the foundation of the Beotian Thebes by Cadmus, that it is impossible to
doubt of their origination from a common source.* That source, so far as
the Greeks and Iliensians are concerned, was probably Phenicia and Egypt:
both because Cadmus is brought from each of those countries into Beotia;
because in Egypt and Syria a cow was called Theba, as being a symbol of
the Ark ; and because Ilus was himself a Phenician deity, the same (ac
cording to Sanchoniatho) as Cronus, and the brother of that very Atlas
1 Virg. .flincid. lib. iii. ver. 163170. . Scrv. in loc. Conon. Narrat. xxi. Diod. Bibl. lib.
v. p. 323, 343. Strab. Gcog. lib. vii. p. 331. Clem. Alex. Cohort, p. 21. Nonni Dionys.
lib. v. Athen. Deipnos. lib. xiii. p. 566. Schol. in Theoc. Idyll, x. ver. 19. Ciccr. dc nat.
deor. lib. ii. c. 26. Fulgen. Mythol.lib. i. c. 4. Jul. Firm, de error, prof. rel. p. 17. Taetz.
in Lycoph. ver. 29. The Cilician Theba was the daughter of Cilix the brother of Cadmus,
who himself founded the Beotian Thebes, being conducted to it by a Theba or heifer. The
itory is fundamentally the same in both cases; and one character is set forth to us under the
naipeof Theba.
*Tzetz. in Lycoph. ver. 29. Apollod. Bibl. lib. iii. 0 11. S.

whom the Greek fable exhibits as his remote progenitor.1
to confine Ilus either to Phenicia or Troas.
167
But we are not
Ila occurs in the mythology of
Hindostan, both as a masculine and a feminine name.
The male Ila is the
great father ; and the female Ila is the great mother. The latter was the
daughter and wife of Ila or Buddha or Menu-Satyavrata, who was preserved
in an ark from the waters of an universal deluge.
Her name, as I have
elsewhere observed, denotes the World : she was at once a personification of

the Earth and the Ark : and the imaginary circle of hills on the summit of
the Paradisiaco-diluvian Meru, which was copied by the circular temples of
the Druids and which equally represented the Microcosm and the Megacosm
of old mythology, was termed from her Ida-vratta or Ila-vratta, that is to
say, the circle of Ila.
Hence as Meru was the Olympus or Ilapu of the
Hindoo arkite gods ; so was Ida, itself denominated Olympus, of the Iliensian : * and the names both of Ilium and of its reputed founder Ilus were
borrowed alike from the Mysteries of Ila or Theba or the bovine Ark. The
whole in short of the early history of the Iliensians can only be deemed
mythological : and the true key to the interpretation of it is afforded by the
legend of Dardanus and the Samothracian deluge.
3. Sometimes we find the submersion of a city substituted for that of an
island ; because a city, surrounded by a wall, was equally deemed typical of
the sacred circle of the World : hence the fabled circle of Ila on the summit of
Meru was likewise called either the city of Ila or the city of Brahma ; and
hence the Druids indifferently used the word Caer to describe both a city and
the inclosure of Sidi or Stonehenge. Still however it is usually, in some
manner or another, connected either with an inundated island or with an
inundating lake.
Of such a nature is the Greek legend of Orchomenus. There were four
cities, which bore this name : and the most ancient was styled Minyean. 1
This, along with some other towns, was thought to have been swallowed up
by a flood in the time of Cecrops : and a pool or chasm was shewn near the
1 Euseb. Praep. Evan. lib. i. c. 10.
1 Strab. Geog. lib. x. p. 470,
3 Strab. Gcog. lib. viii. p. 338. lib. ix. p. ilb". Plin. Nat. Hist. lib. iv. c. S.
CHAP- V,-
168
more modern town of the same name, in which the waters were said to have
been lost, and into which the river Melas still continued to empty itself.*
The whole connection of the present legend sufficiently shews, whence it
originated. Orchomenus, from whom the submerged city was thought to
have received its name, is said by the Greeks to have been the son of that
Lycaon, whose daring wickedness produced the general deluge. This deluge,
which occurred in the days of Orchomenus and his brother Nuctimus,
was the same as that of Deucalion : 1 consequently, it was the same as that
from which Dardanus escaped, when Samothrace was inundated by the
supposed eruption of the Euxinc. Orchomenus is further said to be the
father of Minyas, the general progenitor of the Minyae or Argonauts : but
Tzetzes tells us, that they were so called, because they came from the city
Orchomenus sirnamed the Minyean.1 In the import of these two traditions
there is no difference: they both relate to the deluge. The history of the
ship Argo is a perverted history of the Ark : and the fabulous Argonauts
were called Minyce from Menu, one of the most common appellations of
Noah. Orchomenus himself, as well as his imagined contemporaries Dar
danus and Deucalion, is evidently, as appears from every circumstance of
his legend, no other than the same patriarch. The Greeks indeed claimed
him as a countryman of their own ; and pretended, that the city which he
founded was swallowed up by a flood : hence, as was their custom, they so
modified his name as to give it an Hellenic aspect. But neither the mytho
logical Orchomenus himself, nor yet (as we may therefore conclude) his
appellation, was of Greek original. Nonnus tells us, that he was a Phenician (consequently an Indo-Scythic) deity; that he was coeval with Tethys
and Oceanus; and that he was worshipped on mount Lebanon in conjunc
tion with a Star.
He also describes him as being contemporary with the
nymph Beroe, the Beruth of Sanchoniatho, and the Baris or Argo of

1 Strab. Gcog. lib. ix. p. 407. Lucian mentions a similar tradition respecting a chasm in
the midst of the temple of the Syrian goddess, which was supposed to have received the retir
ing waters of Deucalion's flood.
* Apollod. Bibl. lib. iii. c. 8. I, 2. Ovid. Metam. lib. i.
1 Anton. Liber. Metam. c. x. Apoll. Argon, lib. i. vcr. 229. Tzctz. in Lycoph. ver. 87*.
169
Egypt. 1 From Phenicia therefore bolh his legend and his name must
have been brought into Greece, most probably by the Cadmonites and the
Hermonites; as they were originally brought into Phenicia from the Indian
Caucasus by the Cuthic ancestors of the Phenicians. He seems to have
been the same as Remphan, Chiun, or Saturn; whose star was so famous in
oriental mythology : and I take him to have been the corresponding male
divinity to Astoreth or Astarte ; whom Sanchoniatho similarly connects with
a star, arid who in fact is no other than Betoe 01 Baris or Theba. Mount
Lebanon, as the name imports, was one of the sacred mountains of Lebanah
or the Moon : but this symbolical Moon was the Ark elevated to the sphere
under the hieroglyphic of the navicular lunette ; and Lebanon, where it was
worshipped, was a copy of that Armenian mountain, on which the Ark rested
after the deluge. Orchomenus, in short, whom the Greeks rightly placed
at the era of Deucalion's flood, was Noah : and his name, I apprehend, was
pronounced by the Phenicians of Lebanon, just as they received it from their
Indo-Scythic ancestors, Orcha-Menu or Argha-Menu ; a title, which denotes
Menu of the Argha. He was the same as their maritime Arcles or ArghIla ; which is a name of exactly similar import, for Menu and the masculine
Ila were one. This personage the Greeks styled Heracles, and the Latins
Hercules, though without forgetting his real character ; for they supposed him
to have sailed upon the ocean in one of those large navicular cups, which from
the ship Argha the Hindoos denominate Arghas.1
Thus it is easy to discern the import of the tradition, respecting the sup
posed submersion of the ancient city Orchomenus and the lake or chasm
near the more modern city of that name. But it is worthy of notice, that
the legend goes on to introduce the inundation of an island. A certain
wicked race of men, denominated Phlegyte, are said to have anciently come
out of thp land of Minyas and in the pride of their heart to have quitted the
city of Orchomenus. They afterwards settled in an island : and at length
Neptune, enraged at their impiety, overwhelmed them with the waters of the
sea.'
' Nonni Dionys. lib. xli.
1 Macrob. Saturn, lib. v. c. 21. Athen. Deipnos. lib. xi. p. 469.
c. 5. 10.
1 l'aus. Bitot, p. 597. Nonni Dionys. lib. xviii.
Pag. Idol.
vOL. II.
Apollod. Bibl. lib. ii.
170
4. Stories of a similar description entered largely into the mythology of the

old Celtic Druids : and traditions of the submersion of cities beneath the
various lakes of the country are still current throughout the whole of Wales.
The annotator upon Camden mentions the names of no less than six lakes,
in which ancient cities are reported to have been drowned. 1 One of these
is Llyn Savaddan in Brecknockshire. To this day the old legend of its ima
ginary formation is not forgotten : and it is most curiously and deeply tinged
with the mythological notions of other times, which prevailed over so large
a portion of the globe. Some of its incidents, as related by an old man in
the town of Hay, are thus detailed by Mr. Davies.
The scite of the present lake was formerly occupied by a large city ; but
the inhabitants were reported to be very wicked. The king of the country
sent his servant to examine into the truth of this rumour, adding a threat,
that, in case it should prove to be wellfounded, he would destroy the place as
an example to his other subjects. The minister arrived at the town in the
evening. All the inhabitants were engaged in riotous festivity and wallow
ing in excess. Not one of them regarded the stranger, or offered him the
rites of hospitality. At last he saw the open door of a mean habitation, into
which he entered. The family had deserted it to repair to the scene of tu
mult, all but one infant, who lay weeping in the cradle. The royalfavourite
sat down by the side of this cradle ; soothed the little innocent; and was
grieved at the thought, that he must perish in the destruction of his abandoned
neighbours. In this situation the stranger passed the night : and, whilst
he was diverting the child, he accidentally dropped his glove into the cradle.
'The next morning he departed before it was light, to carry his melancholy
tidings to the king. He had but just left the tmon, when he heard a noise
behind him like a tremendous crack of thunder mixed with dismal shrieks
and lamentations. He stopped to listen. Now it sounded like the dashing
of waves : and presently all was dead silence. He could not see w hat had
happened, as it was dark, and hefelt no inclination to return into the city :
so he pursued hisjourney till sun-rise.
The morning was cold.
He searched
for his gloves ; and, finding but one of them, he presently recollected where
' Gibson's Camden, col. 706.
171
he had left the other. These gloves had been a presentfrom his sovereign.
He determined to return for that, which he had left behind. When he was
come near to the scite of the town, he observed with surprise that none of the
buildings had presented themselves to his view as on the preceding day. He
advanced afew steps. The whole plain was covered with a lake. Whilst he
teas gazing at this novel and terrific scene, he remarked a little spot in the
middle of the water. The wind gently wafted it towards the bank where
he stood. As it drew near, he recognized the identical cradle, in which he
had left his glove. Hisjoy on receiving this pledge of royalfavour was only
heightened by the discovery, that the little object of his compassion had reach
ed the shore alive and unhurt. He carried the infant to the king ; and told
him, that this was all which he had been able to save out of that wretched
place. '
Mr. Davies remarks, that this narrative evidently contains the substance
of one of those tales, which are called Mabinogion, that is, tales for the
instruction of youth in the principles of Bardic mythology : and it seems to
havefor its object a local and impressive commemoration of the destruction of
a profligate race by the waters of the deluge. I think him perfectly in the
right : for, in all countries, mythology has been the substratum of romantic
fiction ; which, gradually banished from the hall, has at length found refuge
in the nursery. But the preceding legend deserves more than this single ob
servation. In it we find the great patriarch, represented as an infant floating
in a cradle or small ark on the waters of an inundating lake. It is most cu
rious to note, how faithfully this ancient mythological idea has been handed
down even to the present age. The egress from the Ark being esteemed a
birth from the great universal mother, Noah was thence naturally considered
as an infant : and, as the Ark was deemed his coffin when he was viewed as
dying to the antediluvian world, so it was equally deemed his cradle when he
was viewed as born into the postdiluvian world. It was under such impres
sions, that the Egyptians represented the god Helius, or Noah elevated to
the solar orb, as an infant sitting in the calix of the aquatic lotos, which by
them as well as by the Hindoos was thought an apt symbol of the ship
. ' Mythol. of Brit. Druids, p. 146, 147.

Argha : 1 and it was under similar impressions, that the Druids of Britain
composed the preceding fable.
5. The destruction then of the old world by the deluge being represented
under the image, either of an island or a city, inundated or swallowed up, by
a lake ; and that destruction being likewise very commonly supposed to have
been partly effected by the agency of fire : it is easy to perceive, in what
light the overthrow of Sodom and Gomorrha, and the production of the
Dead Sea, would be considered by those ; whose mythology was eminently
founded on the doctrine of a succession of floods, general or particular,
igneous or aqueous, all of which are equally denominated by the Hindoos
Pralaya. The close analogy between the destruction of the antediluvian
world and that of the cities of the plain is pointed out by Christ himself: 1
and it was from this resemblance, as I have already observed, that the
righteous Abraham, who was the tenth after the flood as Noah was the tenth
after the creation, and who lived contemporaneously with the latter pralaya
as Noah did with the former, was called by the Phenicians Ilus or Cronus.
The very names of Sodom or Sedam and of Siddim or Seddim, as the
vale was heretofore called which now forms the bed of the asphaltite lake,
serve to point out the mode of idolatrous worship which prevailed in the
subverted cities. The inhabitants of them venerated the great father and
the great mother under the titles of Sed or Seth and Siddi or Sita : and,
from the plural form of the word Siddim, we may collect, that they adored
the hero-gods generally under the appellation of Siddim, as others did under
those of Baalim or Titans or Cabiri. They greedily adopted all the gross
obscenities, which prevailed in the worship of Seth or Baal-Peor: and to
these they added those last abominations, which were religiously practised
in consequence of the doctrine, that inseparably united the great generative
father and the great generative mother in the single character ef the great
hermaphroditic parent. ' This compound being, at once the male and female
1 Plut. de hid. p. 355.
1 Lukexvii. 26 30.
3 The occurrence of the title Sid or Set, Sida or Sita, in so many different regions of th
globp, as an appellation either of the great father or the great mother or the androgynous divi
nity composed by the union of the two, seems to indicate the very high antiquity of its
173
principle of the Universe, the arrhenothelyc Zeus of the Orphic theology and
the Ardha-nari of the Hindoos, vvas practically served hy his w retched vota
ries in such a manner as they deemed most consentaneous to his fabled cha
racter; an awful instance of the deep depravity into which speculative man
may sink, when he prefers his own inventions to the pure behests of revela
tion.
origin : for, unless we suppose it to have been used even prior to the dispersion from Label,
it will be no easy matter to account for the almost universal adoption of it.
As prevailing throughout Palestine, we find a frequent reference to it both in profane and
sacred writers. Justin at once mentions it, and gives us what 1 have no doubt was its real
import. Me tells us, that Sidon was so called from Sidon which in the Phenician language
signifies a Jish : and to this day the city bears the name of Said, which is plainly the first
half of the compound word Sid-On or Said-On. The historian fancies, that it received its
appellation from the abundance offish which was caught there (Just. Hist. Phil. lib. xviii. c.
3.): but this is a mere gloss of his own, which the curious fragment of Sanchoniatho suffici
ently proves to be erroneous. That writer informs us, that the fish-god Dagon, so highly
venerated by the Scythic Philistim and their brethren the Phenicians, was likewise called
Siton : and he adds, that this people also worshipped a goddess named Sidon, who was es
teemed a mermaid, and who was thought to have been born out of the sea (Euseb. Prop. Evan,
lib. i. c. 10.). It was from the god and goddess Siton or Sidon then, not from the abun
dance of fish viewed as an article of food, that the city of Sidon received its distinctive appel
lation: and it was from the. similar worship of the hermaphroditic fish-god, that one of the
submerged cities of the plain borrowed its cognate name of Sodom or Sedom. As a goddess
of the sea, Sidon was sometimes adored under the feminine title of Saida or Silta. Hence we
read of the towns of Beth-Saida and Beth-Sitta; each of which, like Beth-Dagon or BethBaal, certainly received its name from a beth or temple of the fish-goddess (Matt. xi. 21. Judg.
vii. 22.). So again, as the principal hermaphroditic hero-god was worshipped by the appella
tion of Sad or Sid or Sir, the younger hero-gods with their great parent at their head were
venerated under the plural title of Sadim or Siddim ; a name formed from the singular Sad
or Sid, just as Baalim is formed from Baal. Ilenccwc read of the idolatrous Israelites sacri
ficing their children to the Sadim, who arc represented as being the false gods of the Canaanites
(Deut. xxxii. 16, 17. Psalm cvi. 35 38.): hence we find a sacred vale of the Siddim, in
the immediate neighbourhood of Sodom and Gomorrha (Gen. xiv. 8.): and hence, in the
plains of Moab where the impure rites of Scth or Baal-Peor eminently prevailed, we meet
with a place called Sittim or Abd-Sittim (Numb. xxv. 1. xxxiii. 49-)- This last remarkable
compound distinctly points out to us the nature of these Sittim or Baalim. slbel-Sittim denotes
the mourning of the Sittim: and that mourning was the same as the mourning for the dead
Osiris or Adonis. Accordingly, it is alluded to by the Psalmist in the account, which he
CHAp. ri.
J 74
The peculiar punishment of the abandoned Sodomites, who appear to have

carried their religious enormities to a greater length than their brethren in any
other part of the world, was not, I apprehend, arbitrarily selected by the
Supreme Being ; but was chosen, as specially testifying his abhorrence of
gives us, of the doleful though lascivious Orgies of the principal Sit divinity Baal-Peor: he
tells us, that the Israelites, while celebrating them, eat the offerings of the dead (Psalm cvi.
28.). The original word, translated the dead, is in the plural number : so that what the
apostates eat were the offerings made to the dead Sadim or mystically defunct hero-gods; and,
during this part of the ceremony, that mourning took place for the ark-inclosed Osiris and
his seven companions, which gave occasion for the name of Abcl-Sittim.
If from Palestine we pass into Egypt, we shall again find the title Seth used in the same
manner. Typhon, who ultimately blends himself with Osiris and Baal-Peor, was called
Seth : Osiris was denominated Sothi : and the Isis or Neith, who was worshipped at Sais or
Said, was distinguished by the feminine name of Saida (Plut. de Isid. p. 367, 375. Epipfc.
adv. hasr. lib. iii. p. 1093.).
If we next proceed to India, still the same title will present itself to our notice. As the
Dagon of the Philistim was likewise called Siton ; so the Dac of their Cuthic brethren in
Thibet yet bears the title of Sati : as the Derceto of the Syrians was worshipped also, as the
sea-nymph Sidon or Sitta ; so the Durga or Isi of Hindostan is described by the name of
Sita or Sati, as comprehending within her womb the whole family of the hero-gods : and,
as the mystically dead arkite divinities were by the Canaauites denominated Siddim ; so the
spirits of deified mortals are by the Buddhists of the sect of Jain yet styled Siddhas (La
Croze p. 491. Asiat. Res. vol. vi. p. 477. vol. ix. p. 280. Moor's Hind. Panth. p. 107, 108.).
If we return step by step to the utmost limits of the west, we shall equally find the great
father and the great mother venerated under the same ancient appellation. The consort of the
god Belus, the Bali of Hindostan, the Bel of Babylon, and the Baal of Palestine, is said to
have been called Sida ; in other words, she is said to have borne the identical name of the
goddess who was worshipped at Beth-Saida and Beth-Sitta (Cedren. apud Seld. de diis Syr.
synt. ii. c. 4. p. 220.): the primeval king and father of the Gothic Thracians was Sithan,
whence the whole region of Thrace was denominated Sithonia (Ovid. Met. lib. vii. ver. 466.
Herod. Hist. lib. vii. c. 122. Lycoph. Cass. ver. 583, 110.1.): the Ceres of the Syracusians
was revered by the title of Sito (Athen. Deipnos. lib. iii.) : and the Hu and the Ceridwen of
the Druids were known also under the appellations of Saidi and Sidi (Davies's Mythol. p.
197, 199, 242, 292, 557.).
In all these cases, we find the same persons venerated under the same names. The great
father and the great mother were viewed as a merman and a mermaid : hence, in allusion to
their emblematical forms, they were distinguished by titles; which, in the old dialect of the
Cuthic Phenicians, the descendants of those Nimrodian Cuthim who first introduced idolatry
into the postdiluvian world, denoted, we are told, a Jith.
175
that idolatry, which originated at Bahel and which thence diffused itself to
every quarter of the globe. As they were devoted to those Mysteries, which
taught a succession of floods both of fire and of water ; and as they impurely
venerated that twofold principle, by the agency of which the world was
thought to be from time to time regenerated : they were so far punished upon
their own system, as was consistent with the oath of God that the earth should
not be again destroyed by a deluge of water ; an oath, the more carefully
recorded by Moses, as directly contradicting the fundamental theory of Pa
ganism. A flood of liquid fire inundated their cities : the plain, where they
hadstood, became a spacious inland sea: and, instead of any happy renova
tion being accomplished by the two fructifying principles, a once fertile land,
fertile as the garden of Paradise, 1 was visited with the curse of perpetual
sterility.
Agreeably to these remarks, the lake of Sodom was viewed as an eminent
symbol of the deluge by the neighbouring idolaters. This, if I mistake not,
we may gather from various particulars. As the waters of the flood were
fabled to be of a poisonous nature, as lakes were esteemed natural hierogly
phics of the flood, and as the dove sent out by Noah was unable to find
any resting place ; a notion arose, that no birds could fly over the sacred
typical lakes. Such was the idea entertained of the lake Avernus, near
which there was supposed to be a passage to the infernal regions : such also
was the idea entertained of many of the British lakes. Now there was pre
cisely the same mythological fiction respecting the potency of the Dead Sea ;
which may therefore be reasonably inferred to have originated from the same
cause. This inference will be strengthened, if we attend to the peculiarities
of the principal river which flows into it. The Dead Sea was the Avernus
or Acherusian pool of the Canaanites and their neighbours : and the Jordan
was the sacred river of their theology ; just as the Styx, the Nile, the Ganges,
the Euphrates, the Po, or the Danube, were the sacred streams of the same
theological system, as professed in other countries. Hence the lofty range
of mountains, from which it springs, bore the name of Lebanon or the moun
tain of the Moon: the country, through which it first flows, was denomi1 Gen. xiii. 10.
C,,*P'
176
book ui.
nated Argob ; which signifies the land of the serpent god of the Arghu :
near its source, and skirting the territory of the Cadmonites, was mount
Hermon; so called from Hermes or Hermaya, one of the titles of Buddlm
or Menu, - as the Cadmonites received their appellation from Cadam or Codom, another title of the same deity : and the river itself was designated by a
name, which denotes the river of Danaus or Deonaush ; agreeably to the
Indo-Scythic legend, that Deonaush travelled over the whole world, and
communicated his title to all the principal rivers both of Europe and of Asia
and of Africa.1
- II. The proper and complete form of the traditions which we are now
considering, a form borrowed from the language of the Mysteries, I take to
have been this : a kike or inland sea bursts its bounds and overflows an island ;
by which was shadowed out the eruption of the waters of the abyss, and the
consequent submersion of the earth. But, as a city was sometimes substi
tuted for an island, so the sea itself is occasionally substituted for the lake :
and there are instances again, in which the bursting of a lake is said to have
produced a general deluge or a particular inundation, while no mention is
made of the sinking of an island.
1. One of these stories I have already had occasion to notice from its con
nection with Orchomenus and thence with the flood of Deucalion and Dardanus. We are told by Nonnus, that formerly a certain island inhabited by
the impious Phlegyae was violently torn up from the roots by the marine
deity Neptune, and plunged with its whole population beneath the waves of
the sea. 1 If we inquire who these Phlegyae were, we are informed that they
were a branch of the Minyae or Orchomenians, and that they had separated
themselves from their brethren : in other words, they had separated them
selves, through a mad fool-hardiness, from those more righteous Minyae or
children of Menu, who were the navigators of the sacred ship Argo. ' After
1 Jor-Dan, or ihc river of Dan, is a word of the same origin as Danaw or Danube, Tanu'is,
Tunis by which appellation one of the outlets of the Nile was distinguished, and Eli-Dan
which signifies the lunar Dan. It was from this Dan, not from the patriarch so called, that
the town of Dan received its appellation. Accordingly, it is mentioned even in the days of
Abraham, long before the patriarch Dan was born. See Gen. xiv. 14.
* Nonni Dionys. lib. xviii.
1 Paus. Uaeot. p. 597.
177
this separation, while some of the Minyte were safely wafted over the deep
in that Argo or Argha which (according to the Hindoo mythology) floated on
the waves of the universal deluge ; others of them, who bore the additional
name of Phlegyce, were suddenly overwhelmed by the waters on account of
their wickedness.
Such a legend, so far as I can judge, sufficiently explains
itself.
As for Phlegyas, the supposed father of the Phlegyae, he is said by the
Greeks to have been the son of Mars and Chrysa the Beotian, who was the
daughter of Almus. ' We learn however from Phavorinus, that he was not
a Greek, but an Ethiopian or Cuthite ; and that he and another personage,
ealled Mithras, were chiefly instrumental in introducing that mystic worship
. of the gods which commenced in Ethiopia or the land of Cush.1 This fable
merely serves to shew, that the Cabiric Orgies originated from that widespreading family the Cushim of Nimrod, or (as the Hindoos call them) the
CJiasas or Chusas. The Ethiopia, within the limits of which they were first
celebrated, was the Asiatic, not the African, Ethiopia.
By the Hindoos it
is denominated Cusha-dwip within, in -contradistinction to the African Cusha

or Cusha dwip without : and it included Babel and the whole land of Shinar.
The very name indeed of Mithras, the companion of Phlegyas, teaches us,
that we must look, not to Africa, but to Asia, for the origination of the
Mysteries. If ever there were literally such persons as Phlegyas and Mithras,
distinct from the pretended first hierophant Noah, they were most probably
Brahmens or Magi ; the latter of whom had assumed the title of his god
Mithras, agreeably to a practice very common among the votaries of the
great father and the great mother. Phlegyas himself appears to have been a
character sustained in the celebration of the Mysteries, which was designed
to represent that of the great preacher of righteousness.
' Paus. Baeot. p. 597. Apoll. Bibl. lib. iii. c. 5. 5.

x Phavor. apud Steph. Byzant. de Urb. p. 60.
Pag. Idol.
vol. M.
His office was
178
THE ORIGIN OF PAGAN .IDOLATRY.
of the Eneid, which has been thought, and (I believe) rightly thought, to
shadow out the ancient Mysteries. 1
The connection of the Ethiopian Phlegyas with the Mithratic Orgies and
thence with the deluge is intimated not obscurely, both by his special union
with Mithras or a priest of Mithras, and by a circumstance in his history
which the Greeks have preserved and related after their own manner. Coronis, the daughter of Phlegyas, was the mother of Esculapius by Apollo.
The raven falsely accused her of infidelity ; upon which the god slew her in
a fit ofjealousy : but, afterwards discovering his error, he changed the colour
of the raven from white to black by way of punishment for his malicious
misrepresentation.1 This fable is wholly founded on a perversion of a
part of the Mysteries. The solar Apollo of the Greeks was the solar
Mithras of the Persians : the raven was esteemed equally sacred to them
both : and certain priests of Mithras were from that bird denominated ravens
and holy ravens.* Yet, in allusion to the circumstances which preceded
the egress of Noah from the Ark, the raven, though a sacred bird, was
ever esteemed an ill-omened carrier of bad news : while the dove, from
which the arkite priestesses were themselves called doves, was reckoned
highly propitious.4
With respect to Esculapius, he was a Phenician or Indo-Scythic deity :
and the whole both of his history and genealogy relates immediately to the
deluge. He was worshipped in Berytus, so called from the ship Barit or
Baris : his mother Coronis was the Cor or sacred arkite circle of the solar
On : like Attis or Bacchus, he was beloved by the great mother of the diluvian hero-gods, whom the Phenicians called Astarle or Astoreth, by Damascius written hellenistically Astrono'e : and he was esteemed the youngest
of the Cabiric ogdoad, and the son of Sydyk or the just man ; whence San1 So I understand .Eneid. lib. vi. ver. 6l8, 6l9. Phlegyas, not Theseus, clearly seems to
me to be the monitor: for why should Theseus, rather than any other person, admonish the
Phlegyas; and why should the Phlegyas, already condemned, be fruitlessly admonished?
13 Apoll.
lib. iii. c. 10. Myrsil.
3.
CoracesBibl.
and Hicrocoraccs.
apud Aotig. Caryst. Mirab. Hist. c. xvii.
Mythol. vol. i. p. 2894 Herod, lib. ii. c. 5457-
Banier's
179
choniatho informs us, that he was denominated Esmuni or the eighth.1

Thus in every way is the submersion of the Phlegyan isle connected with the
deluge.
2. Nor is such a mode of describing the ruin of the primitive world con
fined to the west : the Chinese relate, in a very similar manner, the preser
vation of the virtuous Peiruun and the sinking of the island Maurigasima,
which may well be styled the Atlantis of the eastern hemisphere.
Maurigasima, says Kaempfer, was an island famous in former agesfor
the excellency and fruitfulness of its soil, which afforded among the rest a
particular clay exceedingly properfor the making of those vessels which now
go by the name of Porcellane or China ware. The inhabitants very much
enriched themselves by this manufacture : but their increasing wealth gave
birth to luxury and contempt of religion ; which incensed the gods to that
degree, that by an irrevocable edict they determined to sink the whole island.
However the then reigning sovereign, whose name was Peiruun, being a very
virtuous and religious Prince, no ways guilty of the crime? of his subjects,
this decree, of the gods was revealed to him in a dream : wherein he was com
manded, as he valued the security of his person, to retire on board his ships
and to fee from the island, as soon as he should observe, that thefaces of
the two idols, which stood at the entry of the temple, turned red. So press
ing a danger impendmg over the heads of his subjects, the signs whereby
they might know its approach, in order to save their lives by a speedy flight,
he caused forthxoith to be made public : but he was only ridiculed for his
zeal, and grew contemptible to his subjects. Some time after, a loose idle
fellow, further to expose the king's superstitious fears, went one night,
nobody observing him, and painted the faces of both idols red. The next
morning notice was given to the king, that the idols'faces were red : upon
which, little imagining it to be done by such wicked hands, but looking upon
it as a miraculous event and undoubted sign of the island's destruction being
now at hand, he went forthwith on board his ships, with hisfamily and all
that wouldfollow him ; and, with crowded sails, hastenedfrom the fatal shores
towards the coasts of the province Foktsju in China. After the king's de' Damas. vit. Isid. apud Phot. Bibl. p. 1073. Euscb. Prrp. Evan, lib. i. c. 10.
****.**
180
bbok m.
THE ORIGIX OF PAGAN IDOLATRY.
parture the island sunk; and the scoffer with his accomplices, not apprehen
sive that their frolic would be attended with so dangerous a consequence, was
swallowed up by the waves, with all the unfaithful that remained in the island
and an immense quantity of porcellane ware. The king and his people got
safe to China, where the memory of his arrival is still celebrated by a yearly
festival ; on which the Chinese, particularly the inhabitants of the southern
maritime provinces, divert themselves on the water, rmving up and down in
their boats as if they were preparing for a flight, and sometimes crying
with a loud voice Peiruun which was the name of that prince. The same
festival has been introduced by the Chinese into Japan ; and is now celebrated
there, chiefly on the western coasts of that empire.1
It is easy to see, that this tradition respecting the island Maurigasima,
though adapted to the manners and habits of China, has originated from the
same source as the legends respecting Atlantis, Samothrace, and the isle of
the Phlegyae.
III. As the submersion of an island is sometimes celebrated in ancient
mythology without any mention being made of the bursting of a lake ; so the
bursting of a lake is sometimes spoken of without any mention being made of
the submersion of an island. In this latter case, the deluge produced is oc
casionally described as partial, and occasionally as universal : but, even.,
where it is said to be partial, we may discover some traces of primitive truth
in the midst of local appropriation.
1. The Arabs of Yaman had a story of this nature, which they incorpo
rated with the history of their own tribe, assigning the occurrence to one
particular region. Mr. Sale, in whose words I shall give it, understands it
literally, and fixes it to its supposed proper chronological epoch ; much in the
same manner, as some writers have attempted to determine the era of the
Argonautic expedition and the age of the flood which was said to have over
whelmed Samothrace in the time of Deucalion : but every circumstance de
tailed in it, as well as the particular form into which it has been moulded,
leads me to adopt a very different opinion.
The first great calamity that befell the tribes settled in Yaman was the
* Kaempfer's Japan. Append, p. 13.
THE ORIGIN OF PAGAN
IDOLATRY.
181
inundation of Aram, which happened soon after the time of Alexander the
great, and isfamous in the Arabian history. No less than eight tribes were
forced to abandon their dwellings upon this occasion, some of which gave
rise to the two kingdoms of Ghassan and Hira. And this was probably the
time of the migration of those tribes or colonies, which were led into Meso
potamia by three chiefs Beer, Modar, and Rabia ; from whom the three
provinces of the country are still named Diyar Beer, Diyar Modar, and
Diyar Rabia. Abdshenu, sirnamed Saba, having built the city from him
called Saba and afterwards Mareb, made a vast mound or dam to serve as a
bason or reservoir to receive the water which came downfrom the mountains,
not onlyfor the use of the inhabitants and watering their lands, but also to
keep the country they had subjected in greater awe by being masters of the
water. This building stood like a mountain above their city, and was by
them esteemed so strong, that they were in no apprehension of its everfailing.
The water rose to the height of almost twenty fathoms, and was kept in on
every side by a work so solid, thai many of the inhabitants had their houses
built upon it. Everyfamily had a certain portion of this water distributed
by aqueducts. But at length God, being highly, displeased at their great
pride and insolence and resolving to humble and disperse them, sent a mighty
flood, which broke down the mound by night while the inhabitants were
asleep, and carried away the whole city with tJie neighbouring towns and
people.1
This story bears such a resemblance to other parallel traditions, that, even
u ithout descending to the minuteness of nearer observation, we are almost
involuntarily led to pronounce ; that it must have had a common origin with
then), that it is no narrative of an event which concerned the tribes of Yaman
alone, but that it relates to an awful visitation which equally affected a whole
world. The persuasion however will be much strengthened, if we note the
particulars of the legend.
In respect to the probability which it may claim as a literal detail of local
circumstances, I cannot but think it not a little unlikely, that a body of men
should build a city immediately beneath an enormous mound that formed an
1 Sale's Prelim. Disc, to Koran, sect. i. p. 10.
CHU,'
182
artificial lake of great extent. They must have been aware, that such a
lake, from the very nature of its situation, was liable to be suddenly swelled
by those mountain torrents which were its feeders; and that, whenever it
was so swelled, there was at least a considerable degree of danger that the
mound might not be strong enough to bear the increased pressure of the wa
ter. They would hope that it might be equal to the weight : but they would
scarcely have built their town in a place, where it must inevitably be inun
dated, if the mound unfortunately ever should give way ; they would not have
taken pains to place themselves in danger beneath the mound, when they
might just as well have dwelt in safety either at the head or on the side of
the lake. So again : it is not easy to conceive, how these Arabs, consider
ing what has ever been the state of society in their country, could have been
equal to the accomplishment of so stupendous a work. The chief of only
a few tribes, in the very midst of a hostile region and partly with a view of
keeping its inhabitants in a state of dependence upon him, is yet able with his
slender means to construct a mound of such ample dimensions, that it rose
like a mountain above his city and was equal to the supporting of many
houses upon its broad summit ! We may form however a yet more distinct
idea of its bulk by calling in the aid of mensuration. The depth of the
artificial lake is said to have been near twenty fathoms : consequently, allow
ing for the fall of ground in the valley which formed its bed, the mound
built across the valley must, on the outer side of it next to the city which
lay beneath, have been more than twenty fathoms in height. What may be
the precise length of the Arabic measure which Mr. Sale expresses by the
English word Jathom, I pretend not to determine : but we may at least con
clude, that he designated it by that English measure to which it the most
nearly approaches.
Now a fathom contains six feet : the height therefore
of the mound must at least have been 120 feet: that is to say, it must have
equalled, if not exceeded, the altitude of the bodies of our loftiest cathe
drals.1 What its length was across the valley, we are not informed : but we
* The internal height of the naves and choirs of Westminster Abbey and York Minster is
from 99 to 101 feet: their external height therefore to the top of the battlements can scarcely
be more than 120. These two are, I believe, the loftiest buildings of the sort in England.

may presume it to have been so great, as utterly to destroy the credibility of CHAP. **
the story considered as detailing an absolute local matter of fact.
Perhaps
it may be said, that the story itself may be true, though the bulk of the
mound be a palpable exaggeration. To this I reply, that, if we diminish the
bulk of the mound and therefore the size of the lake ; we proportionably di
minish, though in another way, the credibility of the narrative. For what
are the alleged effects of the failure of the mound? It does not merely lay
under water the cellars or the lower rooms of a village, which the bursting
forth of such a pool as a large mill-dam might easily do ; but it sweeps away
a whole city. Nor yet does it sweep away a single city : it involves in the
same destruction many neighbouring towns. Nay more : it is a calamity,
which affects a considerable proportion of the tribes settled in Yaman ; for
it compels no fewer than eight of them to abandon their dwellings ; and these
contain a population sufficient to establish two kingdoms. Now the burst
ing of a mere mill-dam could not have produced such results : we require a
body of water at least as large as that which the story sets forth. Thus we
are brought back to the original difficulty of admitting the construction of
such a stupendous mound by the inadequate agents, to whom it is ascribed.
I allow, that vast tumuli in various parts of the world do indeed prove the
wonderful perseverance of the early idolaters and demonstrate what may be
done by the united efforts of multitudes : but the aggestion of the Arabic
mound by the subjects of a petty Sheich surrounded with hostile neighbours
exceeds every limit of moderate credibility.
For my own part, I cannot believe a syllable of the matter, if it be li
terally esteemed a proper local circumstance ; but I think, that the legend
which details it does in a great measure act as its own interpreter. Mr. Sale
fixes the supposed event to the age immediately following that of Alexan
der : but the tradition seems to have been, even as he himself details it, that
it was the earliest calamity which befell the Yamanic tribes. Now this is
the precise mode, in which the flood is described in every local, appropriaThe chapel of King's College in Cambridge may give one some idea of the Arabic mound, ex
cept that it equals it not in height, and must be deemed far inferior to it in breadth. As for
the length of the mound, it would depend upon the breadth of the valley. Yet what a stu
pendous mass would a solid mound of earth be of the dimensions even of that chapel!
184
.book in. tjon 0f
The event itself moreover was not the result of what is usually
called an unlucky accident. The mound did indeed burst: but its disrup
tion was produced by a deluge, specially sent by the gods in order to punish
the pride and insolence of an impious and degenerate race. And what is
the consequence of this divine visitation ? Numbers perish : but eight tribes
are preserved, although constrained to quit their former habitations ; and
these eight tribes emigrate under three leaders. Do we not here detect an
evident allusion to the arkite ogdoad and to the triple offspring of Noah, so
famous in the traditions of every ancient nation? And this opinion is con
siderably strengthened by the names exhibited in the legend. The pretended
deluge, though said to have occurred in Yaman or the south-western re
gion of Arabia, is yet called the deluge of Aram or Mcsopotamian Syria ;
and the three chiefs are represented as leading the emigrants into that coun
try.
Now the country of Aram was famous for memorials of the deluge.
It is the district ; which, viewed as including Syria, contained" Apamea and

Hierapolis, which comprehended within its limits the sacred Paradisaical ririver Euphrates, and which extended to the primeval Cuthic empire of Ba
bylonia. From this centre the arki te Mysteries were carried to every quar
ter of the globe : and with those Mysteries Sabianism, or the astronomical
worship of the host of heaven, was immemorially blended. We find, ac
cordingly, a clear reference to it in the present Arabian legend. The inun
dated city is reported to have been called Saba from the sirname of its sup
posed founder Abdshems. But Saba denotes a host, whence the term
Sabianism: and Abdshems or Abed-Shemesh signifies the servant of tint
Sun.
In a similar manner, with reference to a symbol of the great father
held in high veneration throughout the whole pagan world, one of the three
leaders of the eight emigrating tribes, is called Beer or the ox. The tradi
tion, in short, seems to me to relate to the very same event, and to be handed
down in the very same mystical phraseology, as the parallel legends which
have been already considered.'
* Arkite Sabianism was established in Arabia by its first settlers, who appear to have mi
grated from Babel under Cuthic leaders ; lor wc find a part of the country denominated Ethio
pia or Ckusiitan or the land of Cask. The inundated city in the legend was called Saba ;
185
2. As most of the sacred British lakes were thought to have overwhelmed

certain cities on account of the wickedness of their inhabitants ; so we find,
that the Druids ascribed the general deluge to the bursting of the lake Llion,
thus mingling what they acknowledged to be universal with some degree of
local appropriation. The first of the three awful events, which are said in
the Triads to have befallen the British island, was the burstingforth ofthe
lake of Llion and the overwhelming of the face of all lands ; so that all
mankind were drowned, excepting Dwyvan and Dwyvach, who escaped in
a naked vessel (or a vessel without sails), and by whom the island of Bri. tain was repeopled? With respect to this vessel we are further told, that
one of the three chief master-works of Britain was the ship of Nevydd-NavNeivion, which carried in it a male and afemale ofall living when the lake of
and in the book of Job mention is made both of the Sabeans and of the grand objects of their
worship. The holy man himself, adhering to the religion of Noah, declares his utter abhor
rence of such superstition : but he does it in terms, which shew that the practice of adoring
the Sun and Moon was very generally prevalent among his countrymen. I take it, that the
caution used by Job to offer up sacrifices in behalf of his sons during the days of their feast
ing originated from a fear of their secretly hankering after these illicit practices. Every idol
sacrifice was a festival : and the pious father dreaded, lest the feasts of his children should be
so perverted in imitation of the Sabian feasts, that they should be tempted to bleis the gods
(the false gods of the apostates) in their hearts ; secretly at first, afterwards perhaps more open
ly. Such I deem the proper import of the passage rendered in our translation, It may be, that
my sons have sinned, and cursed God in their hearts. See Job i. 15. xxxi. 26, 27, 28. i. 5.
I cannot refrain from observing, that there is in this ancient book a manifest allusion to the de
luge, couched in terms which not a little resemble those of the Arabian legend: a mighty ri
ver is said to have been suddenly poured out upon the foundations of the wicked. The pas
sage, iu the somewhat more accurate version of Bp. Stock, runs as follows. Hast thou marked
tht path of old, which iniquitous mortals have trodden f Who were laid hold on before their
time, a river was poured on theirfoundation. Who said unto God, Depart from us, and what
can the Almighty dofor us ? Yet heJillcd their houses with good : but, counsel of the wicked,
be thoufarfrom me ! The righteous saw it, and were glad ; the innocent man laughed at them.
Job xxii' 15 19- Among the ancients, the ocean was esteemed a vast river: and, on the
other hand, a large river was considered as a symbol of the ocean at the time of the deluge.
Such was the case with the rivers Styx, Nile, Euphrates, and Ganges : and the Arabian lake,
formed (according to the legend) by a" mound built across the bed of a river, which burst forth
and overwhelmed the dwellings of the unrighteous, had,l believe, when stripped of its locality,
the very same reference.
1 Davies's Celtic Research, p. 157. Mythol. of Brit. Druids. p. 95.
Pag. Idol.
vOL. II.
2 A
CHAP' Tu
186
Llion burst forth.1 And it is added, that another of these master-works was
the drawing of the Avanc (or mystic beaver) to land out of the lake by the
branching oxen of Hu-Gadarn, so that the lake burst no more.''
Such legends, which plainly relate to the Noetic deluge, may serve as a
key to the other British stories, which so frequently connect with each of
the sacred lakes some tradition of a flood.
As I have already observed,
they are only multiplied accounts of one event, adapted to particular re

gions. Every lake was a symbol of the deluge : and the small island, which
reposed on its bosom and which was often feigned to have once floated, re
presented the mundane ship Argha : hence, in most of those recesses where
the diluvian Mysteries were celebrated, we find a story of a flood which
overwhelmed a wicked race of mortals while some ancient personage es
caped in a boat or ark.
Respecting the legends now under consideration, their locality, to adopt
the just remarks of Mr. Davies, as well as their other peculiarities, fur
nishes sufficient proof, that they must have been ancient national traditions.
Such memorials as these cannot be supposed to have originated in the perver
sion of the sacred records, during any age subsequent to the introduction of
Christianity. The contrary appearsfrom their whimsical discrepancy with
historical fact. The Britons then had a tradition of a deluge, which had
overwhelmed all lands : but this deluge, according to them, was occasioned by
the sudden bursting of a lake. One vessel had escaped the catastrophe : in
this a single man and woman were preserved : and, as Britain and its
inhabitants were, in their estimation, the most important objects in the
world; so we are told, that this island, in an especial manner, was repeopled by the man and woman who had escaped. This has no appearance of
having been drazen from the record of Moses : it is a mere mutilated tradi
tion, such as was common to most heathen nations. So again : the Britons
had a tradition, that a vessel had been provided, somewhere or other, to pre
serve a single family and the race of animals from the destruction of a de
luge : but they possessed only a mutilated part of the real history ; and, as
tradition positively affirmed that their own ancestors were concerned in the
building of this vesset, they naturally ascribed the achievement to that coun' Davies's Celtic Research, p. 157.
Mythol. of Brit. Druids, p. 95.
* Ibid.
187
try, in which their progenitors had been settled from remote antiquity. And e"*plastly they had a tradition, that some great operating cause protected the
worldfrom a repetition of the deluge. They had lost sight of the true history, which rests this security upon the promise of the Supreme Being ; and
ascribed it to theJeat of a yoke of oxen, which drew the avanc or beaver
out of the lake.
And the want of more accurate information gave them an
opportunity of placing this ideal achievement in the island of Britain. In

such tales as these we have only the vestiges of heathenism.1
The whole mythological history of Hu, whose oxen draw the beaver out
of the lake and thus prevent a repetition of the deluge, sufficiently proves
him to have been the British Dionusus or Noah : and- his oxen, which ori
ginally were three in number, are but a multiplication of a well known sym
bol of the great father, formed allusively to his triple offspring. As for the
legend itself, it exists not only in the Triads, but is traditionally preserved
among the Welsh even to the present day. Of all the objects of ancient su
perstition, says Mr. Davies, there is none which has taken such hold of the
populace of Wales, as the celebrated oxen of Hu. Their fame is still vi
gorous in every corner of theprincipality, asJar at least as the Welsh lan
guage has maintained its ground. Tradition tells us, that they were of an
extraordinary size, and that they were subjected to the sacred yoke. I have
also several reasons to suppose, that in pagan Britain some rites in comme
moration of the deluge, wherein the agency ofsacred oxen was employed, were
periodically celebrated on the borders of several lakes. In replying to a tale
which seems utterly impossible, we use an old adage which says, The Ychen
Banawg cannot draw the Avanc out of deep waters. This imports, that they
could draw him out of waters of a certain depth. And popular and local
traditions of such an achievement are current all over Wales. There is
hardly a lake in theprincipality, which is not asserted in the neighbourhood
to be that, where thisfeat was performed. Such general traditions of the
populace must have arisen from some ceremony, which was familiar to their
ancestors. And this ceremony seems to have been performed with several
heathenish rites. Mr. Owen tells us, that there is a strange piece of music,
' Mythol. of Brit. Druids, p,
97.
188
book in.
gfin j(mwn to a few persons, called Cainc yr Ychain Banawg ; which was in
tended as an imitation of the lowing of the oxen and the rattling of the
chains in drawing the Avanc out of the lake.1
By the Avanc we are generally to understand the beaver : but we are told,
that in the present instance tradition makes it an animal of prodigious bulk
and force ; yet still, I should apprehend, as the name implies, an animal
of the beaver kind, otherwise there is no reason why it should be particu
larly called Avanc.1 Mr. Davies conceives the Avanc to be ultimately refer
able to the patriarch himself, or to the Ark considered as his shrine and sup
posed to have been extricated from the waters of the deluge by the aid of the
sacred oxen. The propriety of this conjecture I am somew hat inclined to
doubt, though it is by no means devoid of plausibility.
The Avanc seems
to have been esteemed the cause of the deluge, and he is drawn out of the
lake in order that it may burst no more; which implies, that its disruption
was produced by his instrumentality. This character does not answer very
well either to Noah or the Ark : but it accurately corresponds with that de
mon, which is so conspicuously introduced into many old traditions of the
deluge. The flood being the consequence and punishment of sin, and sin
having been brought into the world by Satan, the old mythologists appear to
have ascribed the flood to the operation of the evil principle. Such a notion
is distinctly avowed in the Zend-Avesta ; and it occurs, with more or less
clearness, in many of the legends of pagan antiquity. Thus, in the Hin
doo fable, the demon Hirinacheren carries down the earth to the bottom of
the ocean, but at the close of the deluge is slain by Vishnou. Thus, in
another Hindoo fable, a monstrous serpent and a host of evil demons act a
prominent part in the submersion of the old world. Thus . the Egyptian
Typhon, who is clearly the Greek Python, personates the evil principle and
appears as a huge dragon : yet is he so closely connected with the deluge,
that Plutarch declares him to be the sea. In all these various fables, the
monster, which produces trie flood, is either slain or subdued at the end of it.
Now I would interpret the British story of the Avanc in the same manner,
and would consider that mystic animal as the Typhon or Hirinacheren of the
Mythol. of Brit. Druids, p. 128, 129-
* Ibid. p. 129, 130.

Druids.
189
The adoption of the beaver as a symbol of the evil principle, ra-
ther than a serpent or a mishapen demon, naturally followed from the

making a lake to be typical of the deluge. The lake bursts and inundates a
world : but it bursts in consequence of the mound which restrained its wa
ters being weakened and undermined by the destructive operations of a vast
beaver. The beaver is at length drawn out: and then the lake bursts no
more, because the mound is no longer liable to the ravages of that animal.
3. It is remarkable, that the same cause is assigned to the deluge by the
savages of North America ; a circumstance, which serves to shew how very
widely the prevailing notions of the Cabiric Mysteries had spread themselves.
A spirit, called Otkon by the Iroquois and Atahauta by the other barbarians
at the mouth of the river St. Laurence, is thought to be the creator of the
world : and they assign its reparation after the deluge to this same Otkon un
der the new appellation of Messou. They say, that, Messou or Otkon being
a hunting one day, his dogs lost themselves in a great lake; which, thereupon
overflowing, covered the whole earth in a short time and swallowed up the
world. They add, that this Messou or Otkon gathered a little earth toge
ther by the help of some animals, and made use of this earth to repair the
world again.1
We may observe in the present legend all the principal features, which
mark the sacred fables of the whole eastern continent, whence no doubt at
some early period it was carried into America.
The reproduction of the world after the flood is considered as a new crea
tion ; and each mundane system is ascribed to one and the same transmi
grating divinity, who is clearly the great father of paganism. This demiur
gic god in short, like Cronus and Menu and other similar deitids, supports
the character of Adam the parent of the antediluvian world, viewed as re
appearing in Noah the parent of the postdiluvian world. The disruption of
the lake, and the inundation of the whole earth by its waters, are but a
repetition of those traditions which have already passed in review be
fore us.
Nor are the dogs introduced into the story accidentally and without rea' Hennepin's Discov. of North Amer. p. 54.
CHAP-
190
son ; nor yet, I suspect, merely in reference to any devotedness of the

North-American savages to the chase. We find them here immediately
connected with a tradition of the flood : and we find them, in the eastern
hemisphere, esteemed sacred animals, associated with the arkite goddess,
and generally making a very conspicuous figure in those Mysteries which
were immediately commemorative of the deluge.
Pletho tells us, that cer
tain canine phantoms never failed to be exhibited before the eyes of the ini
tiated
and Bp. Warburton, very justly in my opinion, supposes that one
of these phantoms was the infernal dog Cerberus.* Virgil, in that part of
the Eneid which has rightly been deemed allusive to the Mysteries, speaks
of similar apparitions ; and informs us, that the howlings of dogs were dis
tinctly heard through the gloomy shades of Hades.' Dogs were likewise
sacred to that Hecate or Diana, who was thought to preside in the Samothracian Cabiric grotto of Zerinthus; that grotto, which (according to Lycophron) Dardanus quitted when driven thence by the flood of Deucalion.*
Hence Apollonius properly describes the goddess as attended by them, when
she appeared to the Argonautic Ja3on ; and speaks of their shrill yellings
resounding through the midnight air, while the torches of the Orgies gleamed
before his eyes.5 'Hecate herself is represented by the Orphic poet, as
having the heads of a dog, a horse, and a lion :6 and the barking Anubis
was no unimportant character in the diluvian Mysteries of Osiris.7 He was
depicted with the head of a dog ; and he bore in his hand the caduceus of
Hermes, round which two snakes were intwined. Plutarch tells us, that
some esteemed him the same as Cronus.8 I believe them to have been in the
right : for he was no other than the Egyptian Thoth or Hermes, who is ulti
mately one god with Cronus and Osiris. The dog seems to have been one
of the many sacred emblems of the great father : whence, as Anubis is the
same as Cronus or Osiris ; so the dog Cerberus is often represented upon
medals as couching at the feet of Serapis, who was esteemed the same as
* Orac. Chald. p. 90.
s Virg. /Eneid. lib. vi. ver. 257.
Apoll. Argon, lib. iii. ver. 121 11220.
* Divine Legat. b. ii. sect. 4. p. 123.

* Lycoph. Cassand. ver. 7285.
Orpk. Argon, ver. 973976.
' Latrator Anubis. Virg. /Eneid. lib. viii. ver. 698.
8 Plut. de Isid. p. 368.
THE ORIGIN Oir PAGAN IDOLATRY.
191
Osiris, Pluto, and the Sun.1 Nay we are assured, that Cerberus himself
was the Sun, or Pluto, or Orcus : he was therefore Osiris also ; because
Osiris in his celestial capacity is declared to be the Sun, while in his human
character he is no less clearly the great father.1
But the North- American god of the deluge is not merely attended by
dogs ; he employs his dogs in hunting. This peculiarity also prevails in se
veral of the mythologies of the eastern continent. Hecate or Diana was
esteemed the goddess of hunting, and was represented as followed by her
hounds : yet she was one of the principal Samothracian or Cabiric deities,
and thence like the American god Messou immediately connected with the
flood. In heaven she was the Moon : but that Moon, from the navicular
form of the crescent, was the astronomical symbol of the Ark. Accordingly,
she is declared by more than one writer to be the same as the maritime Isis,
Venus, and Ceres ; to be in reality no other than Rhea or Cybele, the uni
versal great mother of the diluvian hero-gods ; to be therefore, as her own
triplication amply points out, the threefold Indo-Scythic Devi, who as Parvati floats on the surface of the flood in the form of the ship Argha.5 Hence
we find, that this patroness of hunting, this lunar deity, is styled never
theless the queen of the waves, the maritime goddess, the preserver of ships.*
In a similar manner, Typhon, who (as we learn from Plutarch) was the same
as Oceanus or the sea, is said to have been employed in hunting the boar,
when he found the luniform ark which contained the body of Osiris.5 Ado
nis likewise, who is undoubtedly no other than Osiris, and who was thought
to have been during his infancy inclosed within an ark, is represented as be
ing much addicted to hunting and as finally receiving his allegorical death
* Montfauc. Ant. vol. ii. part ii. p. 186, 189. Plut. de Isid. p. 36l, 362. Macrob. Saturn,
lib. i. c. 20.
* Porph. apud Euseb. Prap. Evan. lib. iii. Ci 10. p. 68. Macrob. Saturn, lib. i. c. 20. Sil.
Ital. lib. xiii. ver. 845.
3 Lucian. dial. deor. p. 123. Clem. Alex. Strom, lib. i. p. 322. Diod. Bibl. lib. i. p. 21.
Apul. Mctam. lib. xi. Serv. in Virg. Georg. lib. i. ver. 5.
* Inscrip. vet. apud Gruter. p. 37- Artem. Oniroc. lib. ii. c. 42. Paus. Achaic. p. 437.
Lacon. p. 208. Stiab. Geog. lib. viii. p. 36l.
' Plut. de Ibid. p. 3*4.
192
THE ORIGIN OF PAGAN IDOLATIIY.
from the tusks of a boar.1 Exactly the same notions, respecting the sacredness of dogs and a certain mystical hunting, prevailed among the ancient
Druids, and thence appeared in the diluvian Orgies of Britain. The chase
denoted the celebration of the Mysteries : and the dogs were the epoptte ; who
ever affected the titles, and claimed to themselves the various hieroglyphical
forms, of the great father.* In a curious legend relative to this subject,
which singularly coincides with the ideas exhibited in the American fable,
Pwyll, when about to engage in the exercise of hunting, chooses for the place
of his diversion the vale of the boat or ark.
In the midst of the pursuit,
he meets with a pack of hounds, termed dogs of the deep, the same no doubt
as the infernal dogs of the Eleusinian and Chaldaic Mysteries. Thcmaster
of them informs him, that he is lord of the deep, and that his name is
Arawnor the Avkite. He then proposes, that Pwyll should assume his form,
and thus rule over the vast deep during the space of a complete year ; the
time during which Noah was confined within the Ark. The offer is accepted :
Pwyll remains a year in the great deep, a tenant of the palace of Arawn :
and, when at length he emerges, after a solemn festal sacrifice, he is astonish
ed with the beautiful phenomenon of the rainbow.'
These various coinci-
1 Lucian. de dea Syra. 6, 7- Plut. delsid. p. 357- Apollod. Bibl. lib. iii. c. 13. 4. Notini Dionys. lib. xli.
1 When the great father was a dog, his votaries were dogs; when a lion, lions ; when a boar,
boars. In a similar manner, when the great mother was a bee, her priestesses were bees ; when
a dove, doves ; when a mare, mares.
3 Davies's Mythol. of the Brit. Druids, p. 418424. From this source has clearly ori
ginated the popular superstition respecting evil spirits appearing in the form of black dogs.
When any impious wretch has sold himself to Satan and celebrates his yearly conference with
him, the loud howlingsof these infernal attendants arc heard through the darkness of the night
to the no small terror of the peaceful villager. The early notion, that the gods of Paganism
were literally devils, has caused much of old mythology to be ingrafted upon the ghost-loving
creed of the vulgar. Mr. Grose has given a curious legend of the spectre, which the Manks
call the Mauthe Doog, and which is believed to have once haunted Peele castle in the shape of
a large black spaniel. The demon, it seems, was wont to come and retire, by a dark winding
passage, which led into certain ancient vaults. A drunken soldier had once the audacity to
follow him ; but the adventure cost him his life. He was so terrified, that he died within
three days, having never been heard to speak more. I have little doubt, that the whole tale
has arisen from the Druidical mode of celebrating the Mysteries, which was the very same at
193
dences are too minute to be purely the effect of accident : and I conclude
from them, that our American tradition describes the catastrophe of the de
luge in the well-known phraseology of the Mysteries.1
IV. There are however certain other traditions of a partial and local de
luge, which are not marked by the circumstances either of the bursting of a
lake or the sinking of an island. These I ascribe to the same source as the
former, and interpret in the same manner.
1. The Egyptians had more than one legend of such a nature, to say no
thing of the whole history of Osiria.
. (1.) Thus we learn from Diodorus, that, while Prometheus reigned in
Egypt, the greatest part of men were destroyed by a flood. This deluge is
indeed ascribed to the overflowing of the Nile : but it is absurd to attribute
to a matter, which is at once annual and beneficial, an inundation, which is
said to have destroyed at a very remote period almost all the inhabitants of
the country.* The tradition no doubt originated from the sentiments, which
the Egyptians entertained of the sacred river.
They called it the ocean,
and they, esteemed it a symbol of the deluge, as we may clearly gather from
the circumstance of the ark of Osiris being set afloat upon its waters : hence
their hierophants were obviously led to describe the flood of Noah under
the image of an overflowing of the Nile.
The present fable connects, with the old mythology of Egypt, the legend
of Atlas and the island Atlantis on the one hand, and the cognate superstition
of the Celtic nations on the other. Prometheus, like Atlas, if considered
singly, is the great father : but, when viewed in conjunction with his two
brothers, Atlas and Epimetheus, whom the scholiast on Aratus assigns to
that of celebrating the Orgies of Eleusis. The aspirant passed through various dark winding
passages, ere he emerged into the celestial light of plenary initiation ; and, in his progress
through darkness visible, he beheld the forms, and heard the howlings, of the dogs of hell.
Grose's Ant. vol. vi. p. 198201;
1 1 suspect, that the American savages viewed the enormous Mammoth much in the same
light as the Druids did the A vane. They have a tradition, that, at the close of the deluge, the
last Mammoth sprang at a single leap over the lake Superior, and vanished for ever into the
wilds of Canada. He was probably their symbol of the diluvian evil principle.
* Diod. Bibl. lib. i. p. lo.
Pag. Idol.
vol. ii.
2 B
19-i
book in.
i,jmi he appears in the character of one of the three sons of the transmigrat
ing patriarch.' That writer makes him the offspring of Uranus hy Clymene
daughter of Oceanus : and we may observe, that Hesiod similarly ascribes
to Uranus a triple offspring. In this genealogy therefore, Cottus, Briareus,
and Gyges, occupy the place of Atlas, Prometheus, and Epimetheus.
Cronus meanwhile is made to belong to another branch of the family of
Uranus : but we learn from the Orphic poet, that the diluvian Prometheus
was the very same person as Cronus the universal father of mankind.* His
descent, in short, no less than the Egyptian fable, immediately connects him
with the flood : for Uranus and Cronus, each at the head of his three sons,
are certainly Adam reappearing in the person of Noah. Hence we some
times find Prometheus reckoned the offspring of Iapetus or Japhet; an
error indeed, but an error which serves to throw light on his real character.'
The Egyptians then, it appears, esteemed him one of their most ancient
sovereigns, and fixed him to the era of a great flood : but he was not exclusively
an Egyptian ; he is celebrated in countries very far removed from Egypt, and
with good reason, inasmuch as he was the general parent of all men.
Sometimes he was reported to have been one of the Cabin or Samothracian divinities, and to have officiated as the priest of Ceres or the mundane
Ark: at other times, like his supposed brother Atlas, he was transported to
the country of the Celts or Hyperboreans, and was bound to a crag of that
Scythian Caucasus, which, no less than the Indian Caucasus, was the very
region of the Ark and of Paradise. 4 He is further said to have been the
father of that Deucalion : who was preserved in an ark; who (according to
Lucian) was a Scythian ; and who was equally claimed by the Greeks, by the
Syrians of Hierapolis, and by the Hindoos. s It is almost superfluous to
observe, that Prometheus and Deucalion were in reality one person, and
that the history of each alike relates to the flood of Noah.
(2.) In another Egyptian legend, Menes or Manes occupies the place of
'
*
3
*
5
Schol. in Arat. Phsen. p. 34, 35.

Hesiod. Thcog. vcr. 137, 1*7 153. Orph. Hymn. xii.
Apollod. Bibl. lib. i. c. 2. 3. Proc. in Hesiod. p. 23. Hyg. in praef. fab.
Pausan. Bceot. p. 579. Apollod. Bibl. lib. i. c. 7. 1. /Eschyl. Prom, vinct.
Apollod. Bibl. lib. i. c. 7. 2.
THE ORIGIN OT PAGAN IDOLATRY.
195
Prometheus. He is said to have reigned the first of men : and, in his days,
the whole of Egypt, except the nome of Thebes, was reputed to have been
one immense marsh. 1 This ancient personage narrowly escaped drowning in
the inundation. He was saved by a crocodile, which conveyed him to land
on its back : whence that animal came to be deemed sacred. 1 It was plainly
a symbol of the Ark; as we may collect both from the story itself, and from
the very name by which the Egyptians were wont to designate it. Herodotus
tells us, that they called it Campsa : but Hesychius assures us, that Campsa
properly signifies an ark or chest.1 Accordingly, the canine deity Anubis,
who was the same as Cronus or Noah, was represented standing upon a
crocodile. * This circumstance serves to shew also the identity of Anubis
and Menes, and likewise to point out the real character of the latter. Menes
was the Indian Menu-Satyavrata ; who was preserved in an ark from the
deluge, who (viewed as a reappearance of the elder Menu) was esteemed
the primeval legislator, and who (like the Egyptian hero-god) was attended
by the symbolical bull.
In Crete he was called Minos ; in Lydia, Manes ;
in Scythian Germany, Mannus; and in Britain, Menu or Menwyd. He

was thought to be a great lawgiver : and the Celts had a tradition, that he
constructed a large ship, which they denominated Kyd and which was reck
oned a form of their goddess Ceridwen. In this he passed through the- dale
of grievous waters, having carefully stored the fore part of it with corn.5
(3.) The Egyptians had yet a third story of a partial deluge, in which the
hero bore the name of Phoroneus, and in which he is described as the person
eminently called the first.6 . He is said to have been the son of Inachus, in
whose days likewise there was thought to have been a deluge.7 Yet Acusilaus
tells us, that he was the first man : an ancient poet, cited by Clemens Alex* Herod. Hist. lib. ii. c. 4.
1 Diod. Bibl. lib. i. p. 80.
3 Herod. Hist. lib. ii. c. 69. KapJ/et, flvjxij. Hesych. Lex. In a similar manner, Thtba,
which properly signifies an ark, was used to denote a cow, because a cow was one of the
hieroglyphics of the Ark. Tzi'tz. in Lycoph. ver. 1206.
4 Plut. de Isid. p. 368. Montfauc. Ant. vol. ii. part ii. p. 197".
5 Davies's Mythol. p. 176.
6 Plat. Tim. fol. 22, 23.
7 Tzetz. in Lycoph. ver. 177.
196
ook in.
andrinus, styles him the parent of mortal men : and Anticlides, transferring
him from Egypt into Greece, makes him the oldest king of that country.1
He is said to have flourished in the time of the most ancient deluge : * and he
is reputed to have first brought men together into one place, to have been
the grand arranger of nations, to have been the primeval sacrificer, and to
have been the earliest of mortals that ever reigned. 5 Such characteristics
plainly compel us to identify him with Noah, and to pronounce him the same
also as his own mythological father Inachus.
2. When Greece was colonized by emigrants from Egypt, they brought
with them, and afterwards localized in their new settlements, the diluvian
history of Inachus and Phoroneus; importing at the same time, and similarly
localizing, various other parallel fables. Hence we have numerous Hellenic
accounts of certain partial floods, which were feigned to have taken place
within the country of Greece.
(1.) One of these was thought to have occurred in the district of Argolis,
during the reign of that Inachus who was the reputed father of Phoroneus.
Neptune and Juno contended for the sovereignty of Argos : in other words,
the sea and the dove strove for the possession of the ship Argha or Argo ;
from the worship of which Argos and Argolis received their appellations,
as Berytus and Thebes did similarly from the same ship Baris and Theba.
' The matter in dispute was referred to Inachus, who decided in favour of
Juno: upon which Neptune immediately inundated the greater part of the
country. Juno however at length persuaded him to cause the sea to retire :
and the Argives in gratitude built a temple to Neptune the Inundator or the
god of the deluge, at the place where the waters began to abate. Near this
was an artificial hill sacred to Argus, the reputed son of Jupiter by Niobe
the daughter of Phoroneus ; and a temple of the Dioscori, who, according to
Sanchoniatho, were the same as the diluvian Cabiri.4 The whole of the
present story originated from the mystic commemorative rites of the Ark.
Inachus and Argus were equally Noah or the god of the Argha : and the
1
3
4
Clem. Alex. Strom, lib. i. p. 321. Plin. Nat. Hist. lib. vii. c. 55.
Clem. Strom, lib. i. p. 321. Syncell. Chronog. p. 125.
Paus. Corinth, p. 1 12. Hyg. Fab. 143, 274.
Paus. Corinth, p. 125.
197
mount of Argus, thrown up in the immediate vicinity of the place where the
deluge was thought to have abated, was a copy of that Armenian mountain,
where the Ark rested and where the real Argus disembarked.
(2.) There was a parallel story told at Athens, in which Minerva occupies
the place of Juno, and into which the propitious diluvian olive is conspicu
ously introduced. A contest, it is said, once arose between Neptune and
Minerva, which of them should build the first town in Attica. Jupiter de
cided in favour of Minerva, because she was the original planter of the olivetree in that country. Upon this, Neptune in a rage began to bring over it
an inundation of the sea, or (as some inform us) actually did inundate it :
but Mercury was dispatched by Jupiter to compel him to desist. 1 Pausanias
says, that the contest between the two deities was for the land ; that is to say,
whether the patroness of the olive or the ruler of the ocean should possess
it, whether it should be dry and habitable or laid under water by an inunda
tion of the sea : and he mentions, that among the offerings there was a re
presentation of Minerva with the olive-tree and of Neptune in the act of
raising the waves in order to produce a deluge.*
(3.) This last writer tells us, that there was a very similar story at Corinth
and likewise at Troezene. The Corinthian fable exhibited the Sun as con
tending with Neptune; the Trcezenian, like that of Athens, Minerva.
Helius or the Sun was the great father elevated to the solar orb : and his
struggle with Neptune or the sea must of course be understood as solely
respecting his human character. In the Troezenian contest, which was
thought to have taken place immediately after the time of Horus who was
compelled by the ocean to seek refuge in a floating island, Minerva does not,
as at Athens, prevail over Neptune, but agrees to divide the country with
him : yet, notwithstanding this evident corruption of the genuine tradition,
we may broadly observe, that, in all these parallel legends, the ruler of the
sea is represented, as striving for the possession of the land, and as sometimes
inundating it ; while he is opposed either by the divine dove, or by the god
dess of the olive-tree, or by the Sun who was certainly the astronomical sym
bol of the great father. 5
' Hyg. Fab. 164. Apoll. Bibl. lib. iii. c. 13. 1.
1 Paut. Attic, p. 43.
1 Paus. Corinth, p. 86, 141.
CHAp-*.
VJ8
(4.) The history of Deucalion we have already considered ;
and nave
clearly shewn, that it relates to the general deluge in the time of Noah: yet
the Greeks localized it, and appropriated the whole to a particular district in
their own country. They laid in Thessaly the scene of that flood, from which
he escaped in a wooden ark. The greatest part of Greece they supposed
to have been then inundated ; and most of the inhabitants perished, except a
few who fled to the tops of the highest hills. Deucalion himself, after hav
ing been nine days exposed to the perils of the deep, landed safely on the
summit of mount Parnassus, and there offered a sacrifice to Jupiter the
Deliverer. * Yet this very Deucalion is said by Lucian to have been a Scy
thian : and he is made the son of the Egyptian king Prometheus, who,
having himself seen the greatest part of his subjects destroyed by a flood,
was fixed to a peak of the Scythian Caucasus or Mem.
Deucalion, through his reputed father Prometheus, is immediately con
nected with Atlas, with the submersion of the island Atlantis, with Dagon
or the sovereign prince Buddha in the belly of the fish, with Beruth or Baris,
with the Cabiri, and with the various diluvian gods of Phenicia. An accu
rate account of his escape from the flood was preserved by the Syrians of
Hierapolis : and, in the prevailing humour of local appropriation, he was
thought to have landed in the neighbourhood of that city and on the tops of
Etna and Athos, as well as on the summit of Parnassus. His delude was
that, which inundated Samothrace and which constrained Dardanus to flee
to the opposite shore of Troas : and it was thought by some to have com
menced at Helice and Bura, and to have been caused by the action of violent
w inds upon the clouds which there collected together. The moral occasion
of it was the wickedness of Lycaon, who cut Nuctimus limb from limb and
sacrificed him to Jupiter.*
This fable is nearly allied to the disreption of
Osiris and Dionusus by the Titans, of Orpheus by the Thracian Bacchantes,

and of Absyrtus by Medea in the course of the Argonautic expedition : it is
plain however, since the fame or the family connections of Deucalion ex
tended to Egypt, Phenicia, Syria, Scythia, Thrace, India, the mythologic
island Atlantis, and the real island Sicily, that he cannot have been a mere
Apoll. Bibl. lib. i. c. 7- 2.
* Taetz. in Lycopli. ver. 72, 73.
199
petty prince of Thessaly, nor his deluge have been confined to Samothrace or
Greece.
(5.) TheThebans, as well as the Thessalians and the Athenians, had also
their story of a flood : nor is this any thing more than might be naturally ex
pected ; for their city, like the Egyptian Thebes, received its name from the
superstitious veneration of Theba or the bovine Ark. Ogyges, the supposed
son of Neptune and Alistra, was esteemed the most ancient sovereign of
Beotia : and in his time a great deluge was thought to have occurred, which
Varro ascribes to an inundation of the sea. 1 This fable, though it relates to
the Noetic flood, was brought, like many other of the Greek fables, from
Egypt : for the Beotian Thebes and the Beotian Ogyges are a mere copy of
the Egyptian Thebes and the Egyptian Ogyges. Accordingly, Tzetzes tells
us, that Ogyges was king of the Egyptian Thebes ; of that Thebes, which
alone arose above the water, when in the days of Menes the rest of the coun
try was one great marsh.
He further tells us, that Cadmus came from this
more ancient Thebes, that he transferred the name to the city which he
founded in Beotia, and that from Ogyges he called its gates Ogygian.
With respect to the name of Thebes, he informs us, that it was borrowed
from Theba the daughter of Jupiter and the wife of Ogyges, who flourished,
according to Lycus, immediately after the flood of Deucalion : and he adds,
that in the Syriac language Theba signifies a cow ; whence originated the fable
of Cadmus being led by a cow to the scite of his new city. *
It is not difficult to decypher this legend. Ogyges, who lived at the time
of the flood, is Noah : and his allegorical wife Theba, from whom the two
cities of that name were called, is the Ark, which the Hebrews and Phenicians and Chaldeans denominated Theba, and which was universally sym
bolized by a cow or heifer.
Hence we may account for another fable, in which Theba is made the wife
of Corybas and the mother of the Samothracian Corybantes or Cabiri. 1
These, as their whole history sufficiently shews, were diluvian gods : they
were made, consequently, the children of Theba or the Ark.
1 Varr. de re rust. lib. iii. c. 1.
1 Tzetz. in Lycoph. ver. 1S06.
3 Diod. Bibl. lib. v. p. 323.
CHAP" w"
200
THE, ORIGIN OF PAGAN IDOLATRY.
In fine, the Egyptian goddess Theba was the same as Isis or Argo or
Baris ; her husband Ogyges was no other than Osiris ; and the deluge of
Ogyges must clearly be identified with the deluge of Phoroneus : for Clemens
Alexandrinus tells us, that Phoroneus and Ogyges were contemporaries, and
that the deluge of Ogyges happened in the days of Phoroneus, who was
nevertheless reported to be the first man and the father of the human race. 1
(6.) The Corybantes or Cabiri, who were sometimes thought to be the
children of Theba, were worshipped in Crete under the title of Curetes,
Idei Dactyli, or Telchines. They were equally venerated in Rhodes :
whence, in exact accordance with their general character, we find a Cretan
or Rhodian legend of a partial deluge immediately connected with them.
Nonnus informs us, that they were the sons of Neptune : and Diodorus,
what amounts to the same thing, says, that they were the offspring of the sea.
He likewise tells us, that Neptune was committed to their care when an in
fant, and that they educated him in conjunction with Caphira or Cabira the
daughter of the ocean. 1 Cabira is the same as Theba or the sea-born great
mother : and the infancy of Neptune is the infancy of Osiris, Helius, Bac
chus, Jupiter, and the other diluvian gods. Noah was thought to have been
born from the Ark as from a mother : hence he was represented as an infant,
sometimes literally exposed on the ocean in an ark, and sometimes floating
upon the mysterious aquatic lotos which among the Hindoos is, avowedly a
type of the ship Argha or Argo.
Now these Telchines, thus allied to the Ocean, were reckoned magicians,
who could produce clouds and rain at pleasure. They first inhabited Rhodes ;
where having foretold a deluge, they left the island and were scattered into
various regions of the world.
The flood punctually took place according to
their prediction ; and a few persons only escaped, among whom were the
sons of Jupiter so famous in Cretan story. '
In this legend we may easily perceive, through the disguise of local appro
priation, a very distinct reference to the monitory prophecy of Noah and to
the dispersion of his descendants from the plains of Shinar. J upiter occupies
1 Clem. Alex. Strom, lib. i. p. 321.
* Nonni Dionys. lib. xxvii. Diod. BibU lib. v. p. 326.
* Diod. Bibl. lib. v. p. 326, 327-
201
the place of the patriarch ; and his children, who escape from the deluge,
that of the Noetic family. Nor is this inconsistent with his character: for
he is said to have been nursed, while an infant, by doves on the summit of
mount Ida, which, like the Hindoo Ida-vratta or Meru, was a transcript of
Ararat ; and he is feigned to have been at once the father and the lover of
that Theba, who was the wife of the diluvian Ogyges. By her he was the
parent of Egyptus and Danaus, Danaus being the brother of Egyptus. 1 But
this Danaus was the navigator of the Argo ; which in Egypt was the ship of
Osiris, in Greece the ship of Jason, and in Hindostan the ship of Siva. *
3. Theba was sometimes reckoned the daughter of Cilix, the brother of
Cadmus and the reputed father of the Cilicians : and then it was, that she
is said to be the mother of the Corybantes or Cabin.' As she is thus trans
ported into Cilicia, though (as her relationship to Cadmus shews) in palpable
connection with the theology of Egypt and Beotia, we shall find a story of a
local deluge at Tarsus.
The Tarsians, in their account of this catastrophe, asserted, that, when
the waters began to retire, the tops of the Tauric mountains, at the feet of
which stood Tarsus, first appeared. Hence it acquired the name of Polls
Tersia or the city of dryness ; which was afterwards, if we may believe the
Greeks who delighted to resolve every appellation into their own language)
corrupted into Tarsus. In its immediate vicinity another tradition prevailed,
which has evidently been borrowed from the emission of the Noetic raven.
A neighbouring town, called Mallus, was supposed to have received its de
nomination from the circumstance of a raven's having brought a lock of wool
there. 4 The Tauric mountains, which rose above their city, were the ridge,
to which -the Tarsians, in the common spirit of local appropriation, fixed the
1 Tzetz. in Lycoph. ver. 1206. Apoll. Bibl. lib. ii. c. 1. A. Apollodorus makes their
father to be Belui, and their mother Anchinoe. But this amounts to the same thing:
for Belus or Baal was an oriental name of Jupiter, and Anchinoe. was Theba under a some
what different appellation. From the evident personal identity of Theba and Anchinoe, 1 con
clude the name of the latter to be a corruption of Archinoi or Archa-Noe, which denotes the
Ark or Argha of Noah.
* Schol. in Apoll. Argon, lib. i. ver. 4. Plut. de Isid. p. 359. Asiat. Res. vol. vi. p. 523.
3 Diod. Bibl. lib. v. p. 323.
* Eustath. in Dionys. Perieg. ver. 870, 875.
Pag. Idol.
vol. u.
2 C
eHAP. **,

appulse of the Ark.
There was another ridge, bearing the same name and
similarly connected with the history of the deluge, which extended from
eastern Armenia into Bactriana. The real appellation, as it is still accurately
preserved by the natives of the country, is not Tauris, as the Greeks wrote
it, but Tabris or Tebriz or Tabaris.
This word, in perfect agreement with
the Cilician tradition, denotes the place of the Baris : but the Baris was the
same as Theba or Argha or the Ark.
THE
ORIGIN
OF
PAGAN
IDOLATRY.
BOOK IV
CHAPTER
I.
Concerning the identity and astronomical character of the great gods of

the Gentiles.
T?hough the Gentiles were ostensibly polytheists; yet, in absolute strict

ness of speech, they worshipped only one great compound deity, who was
the reputed parent of the Universe. All their gods ultimately resolve them
selves into a single god, who was esteemed the great father : all their goddesses
finally prove to be only one goddess, who was accounted the great mother :
and these two beings at length appear as a sole divinity, who was thought to
partake of both sexes, and who was venerated as alike the father and the
mother of the whole world.
Yet, while the Gentiles were thus worshippers of one deity, they did not
worship the Almighty Creator of heaven and of earth. The uniiy, which
they adored, was not the Unity of the real Godhead ; though, since it was
revered as God, it had thence by a necessary consequence the divine attri
butes ascribed to it.
But, decorated as it was in such a manner, which has
led many writers to mistake it for the genuine Deity ; it was after all a mere
creature, or rather a very remarkable compound of creatures, which was
worshipped in the place of the Creator. This will distinctly appear from
every part of the character of the great universal parent of heathen mytho
logy, when it shall have been carefully traced through all its various ramifi-
'206
Hook iv.
cations.
THE ORIGIN OK PAGAN IDOLATRY.

I begin the inquiry with discussing the identity and astronomical
character of the gods of the Gentiles.

I. The ancient mythologists of all nations are unanimous in asserting, that
each of their chief masculine deities is equally the Sun : and thence they no
less explicitly than consistently maintain, that all these deities, though appa
rently distinct, are fundamentally one and the same. Their testimony there
fore sufficiently establishes what may be called the astronomical or celestial
character of the pagan hero-gods.
1. Thus, to descend to particulars, Saturn or Cronus is declared to be the
Sun by Macrobius and Nonnus.'
2. Jupiter is said to be the Sun by Macrobius, Nonnus, and the author of
the poem6 which bear the name of Orpheus.1
3. Pluto or Aidoneus is said to be the Sun by the Orphic poet : and this
position follows also from his declared identity with other deities who are
avowedly the Sun. So well indeed was it established, that Eusebius asks in
astonishment, on what grounds Pluto and Sarapis, who were one and the
same infernal deity, could yet be identified with the solar orb. 5
4. Bacchus or Dionusus is represented as the Sun by Virgil, Ausonius,
Macrobius, Sophocles, and the Orphic poet.4
5. Priapus is said to be the Sun by the Orphic poet, who identifies him
with Protogonus and Dionusus.5
6. That Apollo is the Sun, it may seem almost needless to prove, as he is
specially the solar deity of classical mythology. He is asserted however to
be so, if proof be required, by Macrobius, Nonnus, the Orphic poet, and
one of his own oracular responses : and Ovid indifferently calls him Phoebus
and the Sun.6
' Macrob. Saturn, lib. i. c. 22. p. 214. Nonni Dionys. lib. xl. p. 683, 684, 685.
1 Macrob. Saturn, lib. i. c. 23. p. 215. Nonni Dionys. lib. xl. p. 683, 684, 685. Orph.
Fragm. p. 364. Edit. Gesn. Hymn. vii. 13.
3 Orph. Fragm. p. 364. Euseb. Prap. Evan. lib. iii. c. 13. p. 76.
* Virg. Georg. lib. i. ver. 6,7, 8. Orpb. Fragm. apud Macrob. Saturn, lib. i. c. 18. Orph.
Fragm. edit. Gesn. p. 363, 364. Auson. Epig. 30. Macrob. Saturn, lib. i. c. 18. Soph.
Antig. ver. 1162 1170.
3 Orph. Hymn. v. 1, 8, 9. xxix. 1, 2.
8 Macrob. Saturn, lib. i. c. 17. Nonni Dionys. lib. xl. Orph. Hymn. vii. 12. xxxiii.
Orac. Vet. Opsop. p. 6. Ovid. Metarn. lib, i. ver. 751, 752. lib. ii. ver. 1.
207
7. Janus is said to be the Sun by Macrobius. 1

8. Pan or Phanes is also said to be the Sun by Macrobius and the Orphic
poet. 1
9. Hercules is said to be the Sun by Nonnus and Macrobius.'
10. Vulcan or Hephestus is said to be the Sun by the Orphic poet.
The
Egyptians called him PhthaanA Ammun; and esteemed him the same as
Osiris, whom they professedly venerated as the Sun.4
11. Esculapius or Asclepius is said to be the Sun by Macrobius. This
opinion was so fully recognized by his worshippers, that Eusebius ridicules it
as a well-known absurdity, on the ground that he is made the offspring of
Apollo, who himself also is the Sun. Such however was the constant ar
rangement of the genealogies of the pagan gods.
The same deity is perpe
tually represented under the two-fold relation of son and father, according
as he was viewed under different aspects.5
1 2. Mercury or Hermes is said to be the Sun by Macrobius ; and by the
Orphic poet he is declared to be the same as Bacchus, who is similarly pro
nounced to be the Sun. This deity was the Herm-Anubis, or Thoth, or
Taut, of the Egyptians and Phenicians ; who was reckoned the same as
Cronus or the Sun. He was also the Theutates of the Celts, the Tuisto of
the Goths, and the Twashta or Tat or Datta of the Hindoos. Tat is the
same as Buddha or Sacya : and Buddha again is ultimately allowed to be
Surya or the Sun.6
1 3. Theus, Theuth, or Thoih, was likewise a name of Mars or Ares.
Hence Macrobius joins the god of war with Mercury, and declares him to
be equally the Sun. The warrior Mercury was the Woden or Wudd of the
Scythic tribes : and Wudd or Budd was the same as the Indo-Scythic Buddha,
whose worship was brought from Asia into Europe by the Gothic emigrants
1
1
3
*
5
*
10.
Macrob. Saturn, lib. i. c. 17. p. 195. c. 9. p. 157.

Macrob. Saturn, lib. i. c.22. Orph. Fragm. apud" Mac. Saturn, lib. i. c. 18. Hymn. v. 8.
Nonn. Dionys. lib. xl. Macrob. Sat. lib. i. c. 20.
Orph. Hymn. lxv. 6. Jamb, de Myster. sect. viii. c. 3.
Macrob. Saturn, lib. i. c. 20. Euseb. Praep. Evan. lib. iii. c. 11. p. 75.
Macrob. Saturn, lib. i. c. 19. Plut. de Isid. p. 368. Euseb. Pra:p. Evan. lib. i. c. 9,
Moor's Hind. Panth. p. 249.
208
-
from Cashgar and Bokhara. Ares or Heres was among the eastern nations
a title of the Sun : and Mars, as the Latins compoundedly expressed the
word, is but Ma-Ares or the great Ares. As Mars, from his identity with
the solar Taut or Mercury, was called Theus-Ares ; so Dionusus bore the kin
dred appellation of Dus-Ares.
Each of these names is Thoth-Ares or Thoth
the Sun: and it may be observed, that from Thoth or Theuth the Greeks
borrowed their word Theus as the Latins did their Deus, which they seve
rally used by way of eminence to denote the godhead. Our English word
God has been taken from another appellation of this same deity, which toge
ther with our language we received from our Indo-Scythic ancestors. God,
Ghaut, Godama, and Gautama, are varied titles of Wudd or Buddha ; and
Buddha is the same as Thoth or Hermes. 1
14. Osiris, Horus, and Serapis, are each said to be the Sun by Diodorus
Siculus, Macrobius, Eusebius, an ancient oracle of Apollo", and the author
of the Horapolline hieroglyphics.'
15. Belus or Baal is said to be the Sun by Nonnus.
Baal is a mere title,
denoting Lord ; just as Molech signifies King : and Baal and Molech were
clearly names of the same solar god. The former is variously compounded,
in allusion to the various attributes of the deity who was known by it ; as
Baal-Peor, Baal-Zebub, Baal-Berith, and the like : the latter also expe
riences similar modifications, as Adrammelech, Anammelech, and Melchom
which signifies the burning king or the king the Sun. Baal and Molech
were the same as Jupiter, Cronus, Osiris, or Priapus. Thus the chief god
of the Carthaginian Phenicians, whose bloody sacrifices plainly shew him to
be Molech, is said to have been Cronus or Saturn : thus the phallic rites of
Baal-Peor identify him with Osiris, Bacchus, Seth or Typhon, and Priapus
whose name some have supposed to be the compound Peor-Apis : and thus
1 0U<rafijf, tout' sari flsoj Afijj. Suid. Lex. Macrob. Sat. lib. i. c. 19. Mai, fieya. Hesych.
Lex. This ancient particle is the basis of the Hebrew Mad, the Sanscrit Maha, the Greek
Megas, and the Latin Magnus; all of which describe greatness or excess. Aovaa^v, toy
Awvaov. Hesych. Lex.
1 Diod. Bibl. lib. i. p. 10. Macrob. Saturn, lib. i. c. 20, 21. Euseb. Prap. Evan. lib. iii.
c. 12, 13. Horapoll. Hicrog. lib. i. 71.
THE ORIGIN OP PAGAN IDOLATttr.
209
the Babylonic Belus is spoken of as the Assyrian Jupiter or Zeus, and is like- CHAP. ,,
wise pronounced the same as Cronus and the Sun. 1
16. Adonis or Attis is said to be the Sun by Macrobius ; and he is repeat
edly declared to bethe same as Osiris or Dionusus.*
17. 1 cannot produce any positive declaration, that Dagon was the Sun :
but we may clearly gather it in the way of induction.
Sanchoniatho represents him as the brother of Cronus or Molech ; which,
on the principles of heathen mythology, is in effect pronouncing him to be the
same : and he adds, that he was Jupiter or Baal, considered as the patron
of agriculture : Jupiter however, and Baal, and Cronus, were equally the
Sun.
We may also infer, that he was a solar god from the import of his name.
Jerome tells us, that it signifies the fish of affliction : whence it is evident,
that he esteemed it a compound word, and did not imagine it to be formed
from a simple Hebrew radical by the addition of the servile letters. To
produce then the sense, which this commentator ascribes to the title Dagon,
we must conclude, that he supposed it to be made up of the two words Dag
and On, or at least that such was the opinion of his informer. The conjec
ture I believe to be perfectly right ; though I doubt, whether affliction be the
proper rendering of the latter word. On does indeed in the Hebrew signify
distress or trouble: but it was likewise an Egyptian name of the Sun, in
which manner it clearly ought to be understood in more than one passage of
Holy Scripture.
The Jews wrote the names of the false gods of the Gentiles
by the ear : and the consequence has been, that, the sound frequently lead
ing them to express such names by words in their own language of a very
different import, the original sense has often been wholly mistaken. Thus,
in the present instance, what ought to have been written Dag-On, they wrote
Dagon: and Jerome or his interpreter, supposing it to be compounded of
two proper Hebrew words, has translated it accordingly.
Thus also the
Platonists, similarly writing by the ear, expressed the Egyptian On by their

own On ; and then, with the usual vanity of their nation, fancying that it
' Nonni Dionys. lib. xl. Pcscenn. Fest. apud Lactant. Instit. lib. i. c. 21. Porph. de Abstin. lib. ii. 56. Herod. Hist. lib. i. c. 181. Hieron. comm. in Hos. ix. 10. Serv. in Virg.
iEneid. lib. i. ver, 733.
* Macrob. Saturn, lib. i. c. 21.
Pag. Idol.
vol. ii.
2 D
210
book iv.
must 0f course be a Greek word, they explained it as meaning that which

exists. In absolute strictness of speech, the origin of the title Dag-On is
not to be sought for either in Palestine or in Egypt. The Philistines, like .the
Phenicians and the Shepherd-kings, were of the family of the pastoral Palli
or Indo-Scythae : and they brought with them into their western settlements
the worship of that god, whom they had been accustomed to adore in their
native Cashgar.
In the high region of the Indian Caucasus or Meru and in ,
the extensive empire of Ava, Buddha is still venerated under the name of
Dakpo and Dagun : and the Egyptian On or Aun is, the same word as the
famous Hindoo triliteral monosyllable Om or Aum. Dag does indeed sig
nify* a fish in the Hebrew; but, as the Philistines brought the name with
them from the confines of India, they must have received it in the first in
stance from their Cuthic ancestors of Babylonia, where the Chaldee, a dialect
of the Hebrew, is known to have been spoken. That they received it in the
sense of afish, is manifest from the character of their god Buddha ; who, as
Dagun, is styled the sovereign prince in the belly of the fish. This is yet
further manifest from the character of Vishnou, who is allowed to have been
incarnate in the person of Buddha, and who therefore must ultimately be
identified with him. Now the form of Vishnou in the Matsya Avatar is that
of a man joined to or issuing from a fish ; a form, which exactly corresponds
with the preceding title of Buddha. But the form of Dagon was precisely
the same as that of Vishnou in the Matsya Avatar ; the same also, as that of
Buddha-Dagun, according to his title of the sovereign prince in the belly of
thefish i the same moreover, as that of ihe Oannes or Odacon or Anne-Dot
of Babylon, whence this hieroglyphical mode of worship originated.
Hence
I think it evident, that the Dagon of the Philistines' is the Buddha- Dagun of
the Indo-Scythae. Buddha however is pronounced to be the same as the
Hindoo triad Brahma- Vishnou-Siva .conjointly. The title therefore of Om is
equally bestowed upon Buddha and upon this triad : and Buddha and the triad
are alike declared to be astronomically the Sun. But, among the Egyptians,
On was a name of the solar deity. Consequently, the import of the word
Dagon will be the Sun xcorsliippcd under the form of a fish.
It may be observed, that the oriental Buddha is not only called Dagun and
Da/c-Po, but likew ise Pouti-Sat. This serves additionally to prove, that the
name of the Philistean Dagon was brought by his worshippers into Palestine,

notframed subsequently to their arrival there.
211
Sanchoniatho informs us, that
one of the titles of Dagon was Siton. But Siton is Seth or Sid united in
composition with On : and Seth, which is the Egyptian name of Typhon,
is evidently the Indo-Scythic Sat. The Dagon and Siton, in short, of the
Philistines and Phenicians are plainly the Buddha-Dagun and the Pouti-Sat
or Buddha-Sat of the Cuthic Hindoos.
That Dagon is astronomically the Sun, may be yet further argued from the
character of Atargatis or Derceto, the Syrian Venus. This goddess was in
form precisely the same as Dagon, allowing only for the difference of sex.
Now Derceto is declared to be the same as Isis : and Isis, as we are assured
by Diodorus, was the Moon. If then the female deity was the Moon, we
may safely conclude, from the genius of old mythology, that the correspond
ing male deity was the Sun. 1
18. The very same astronomical character is sustained by the triple god of
the Hindoos, Brahma-Vishnou-Siva ; and not only by this preeminent triple
god, but likewise by all their other male deities. Each of these, we are as
sured, ultimately resolves himself into Brahm ; while Brahm, from whose
unity springs the subordinate triad, is acknowledged to be the Sun. The
peculiar mode, in which the Hindoos identify their three great gods with the
solar orb, is a curious specimen of the physical refinements of ancient my
thology. At night and in the west, the Sun is Vishnou ; he is Brahma, in
the east and in the morning ; from noon to evening, he is Siva. *
19. The Persian Mithras also is well known to have been the Sun : and
accordingly he is declared to be so by Strabo, Hesychius, Suidas, Nonnus,
Statius, and in an ancient inscription preserved by Martianus Capella. '
20. The Druidical Hu, who is clearly the same character as the Greek
Huas or Dionusus and who is thence rightly so called by Dionysius, is ano
ther of the gentile gods, who in his celestial capacity is undoubtedly the Sun.
The smallest of the small is Hu the mighty, in the world's judgment, says
* Sanchon. apud Euseb. Praep. Evan. lib. i. c. 10. Hicron. Comm. apud Scld. de diii
Syr. synt. ii. c. 3. p. 203. Parkhurst's Heb. Lex. vox fM. Asiat. Res. vol. i. p. 285. Simp,
in Arist. Ausc. Phvs. lib. iv. Diod. Bibl. lib. i. p. 10. Symes's Embass. to Ava. vol. ii. p. 110.
1 Moor's Hind. Pan*, p. 6, 9, 13, 33, 277, 294- Asiat. Res. vol. i. p. 267. vol. v. p. 254.
* Strab. Geog. lib. xv. p. 732. Hesych. Lex. Suid. Lex. Nonni Dionys. lib. xl. Slat.
Thebaid. lib. i. ver. 715 et infra. Soli invicto Mithree. Inscript. apud Mart. Capell. lib. iii.
gha*. t.

>ook iv.
the bard Rhys Brydydd, meaning, I apprehend, that he had become contempt
ible in the eyes of the evangelized Britons : yet he is the greatest and lord
over us, we sincerely believe, and our god of mystery. Light is his course and
swift : a particle of lucid sun-shine is his car. He is great on land and seas,
the greatest whom I shall behold, greater than the worlds. Let us beware
of offering mean indignity to him, the great and bountiful. Sometimes this
god was called Beli, which the Romans wrote Belinus; an appellation,
plainly deducible from the oriental Bel, Belus, or Baal : and, since Hu,
Beli) and the Sun, were alike celebrated as the sovereign of heaven and the
supreme lord of Britain, it is manifest, that Hu or Beli was the solar deity.
The name appears, among the different Celtic tribes, to have been variously
expressed Beli, Belts, Belen, Belatucader or the illustrious Beli, and Abellion or father Baal the Sun; which last, if I mistake not, is precisely the
same compound title as the classical Apollo or Apollon ; but, however it
may be varied, Selden rightly refers its origin to the eastern Baal, and pro
nounces the god who bore it to be the solar divinity of the Hyperboreans.'
21. The same mythological ideas prevailed also in America at the period of
its first discovery. The Mexicans worshipped the Sun, esteeming him the
offspring of their principal god Vitzliputzli. But this circumstance, by the
general analogy of Paganism, shews, that Vitzliputzli was himself the Sun.
Thus the Hindoos considered their triad as the offspring of Brahm ; thus the
Egyptians reckoned Horus the son of Osiris, and Helius the son of Phtha or
Vulcan ; and thus the Greeks feigned Esculapius to be the son of Apollo,
Apollo to be the son of Jupiter, and Jupiter again to be the son of Cronus :
while yet Brahm and the great triad, Osiris and Horus, Phtha and Helius,
Apollo and Esculapius, Cronus and Jupiter, were all equally and severally
the solar orb. 1
22. The Sun was likewise the principal god of the Peruvians; and his
worship was joined with that of Virachoca : a junction, by which it was in
timated, that Virachoca himself was the Sun, when his character was viewed
astronomically.'
* Dionys. Perieg. ver. 565574. Davies's Myth, of Brit. Druids, p. 110, ll6, 117, 120,
336, 562. Seld. de diis Syr. synt. ii. c. I. p. 143.
* Purch. Pilgrim, b. viii. c. 11.
1 Purch. Pilgrim, b. ix. c. 10, 11.
THE ORI-61N OF PAGAN tDOLATRY.
S13
1 1 As most of the great gods of the Gentiles are declared' by the old my
thological writers to be each separately the Sun ; so we may naturally expect
to find, that their general mutual identity would be a prominent feature in the
arcane theology of Paganism. Such accordingly is the case : and the special
name, by which this mystic intercommunion of deities was usually designated,
appears, as we learn from Damascius, to have been in the Greek language
TTieocrasia.'
Many are the declarations to this purpose, which are still extant. Thus
Damascius and Suidas assert the identity of Osiris and Adonis ; and Clemens
Alexandrinus teaches that of Dionusus and Attis : while Macrobius informs
us, that Adonis, Attis, Osiris, Horus, and Liber, were all equally the Sun ;
and Ausonius, that Bacchus, Osiris, Phanac, Dionusus, Liber, and Aidoneus, were but one and the same god under different names. 1
In a similar
manner, the Orphic poet declares, that Jupiter, Pluto, and Bacchus were
only varied appellations of the Sun : and Diodorus and Suidas tell us, that
Osiris and Bacchus were one divinity. 5
So again : Vulcan or Phtha, as we
learn from Jamblichus, was the same as Osiris : and Pan, as we are taught
by Diodorus, was the same as Serapis, Osiris, Dionusus, Pluto, Ammon, and
Jupiter.4 Thus likewise Anubis or Hermanubis, the Egyptian Thoth or Mer
cury, was no other, we are told, than Cronusor Saturn; who himself again was
one deity with the Molech or Baal of Palestine. 5
With the Egyptian Thoth
or Taut, the oriental Tat or Buddha clearly identifies himself : and, as Brahma,
Vishnou, and Siva, are mutually the same deity ; so they are severally de
clared to be one with Buddha.6 Janus, in like manner, as we learn from
Nigidius, was the same as Apollo ; and thence the same as Cronus or Sa
turn, though the latter was reputed to have been his host.7
Mars again, in
* CVifiv evra xai ASuivtv naxa, ryv /Auo-nxijv 0EOKPAZIAN. Damas. vit. hid. apud
Phot.Bibl. p. 1049* Damas. ut supra. Suid. Lex. vox 'HfaI<rxoy. Clem. Alex. Cohort, p. 12. Macrob.
Saturn, lib. i. c. 21, 18. Auson. Epig. 30.
3 Orph. Fragm. Gesn. p. 364. Diod. Bibl. lib. i. p. 13. Suid. Lex.
* Jamb, de Mysier. sect. viii. c. 3. Diod. Bibl. lib. i. p. 22.
5 Plut. de Isid. p. 368. Pescen. Fest. apud Lactan. Instit. lib. i. c. 21. Porphyr. de Abstin. lib. ii. 56.
* Moor's Hind. Panth. p. 6, 9. Asiat. Res. vol. i.'p. 285. vol. v. p. 254.
7 Nigid. apud Macrob. Saturn, lib. i. c. 9, 7.
214
',
the .judgment of Macrobius, was one with Bacchus and Mercury; and Apollo,
according to the Clarian oracle, with Horus, Osiris, Bacchus, and the
Sun.' So likewise Dionysius tells us, that Bacchus was the great god of the
Britons ; and Diodorus, that they worshipped Apollo or the Sun in a vast
circular temple.* But we find, that the national title of this deity was Hu
or Belt, that he had all the attributes of Bacchus and Apollo, and that he
was specially adored in the immense circle of Stone-Henge.' Hu, Bacchus,
and Apollo, then were one god : and, as Hu had the attributes both of Bac
chus and Apollo ascribed to him ; so, as we learn from Macrobius, the
worship of these two latter deities prevailed in mystic union on the sacred
hill Parnassus.4
But, on a subject like this, it were almost endless to multiply authorities.
Suffice it to say in conclusion, that, according to the Orphic poet, Protogonus or the first-born, Phanes, Priapus, Titan, Helius or the Sun, Jupiter,
Pan, Hercules, Cronus, Prometheus, Bacchus, Apoilo, Pean, Adonis, and
Cupid, are all one divinity : according to Sophocles, Titan or the Sun is
the same as that Prometheus, whom the Orphic poet declares to be Cronus :
according to Statius, Titan, Osiris, and Mithras, are only different names
of the solar god Phoebus or Apollo : and, according to Nonnus, Hercules,
Belus, Ammon, Apis, Cronus, Jupiter, Scrapis, Phaethon, Mithras, and
Apollo, are all fundamentally one and the same god ; and that god is Helius
or the Sun. s
* Macrob. Saturn, lib. i. c. 19. Orac. Vet. Opsop. p. 6.
* Dionys. Perieg. ver. i65574,. Diod. Bibl. lib. ii. p. 130.
3 Davics's Mythol. p. 113, 126, 562.
.
4 Macrob. Saturn, lib. i. c. 18.
5 Orph. Hymn. v. 1,8, 9. vii. 2, 13. x. 1, 12. xi. 1. xii. 2, 7. Fragm. p. 364. Hymn,
xxxiii. 1,3. lv. lvii. Soph. CEdip. Colon, ver. 57. Stat. Thcbaid. lib. f. ver 717741.
Konni Dionys. lib. xl.
CHAPTER
II.
Respecting certain remarkable opinions which the Gentiles entertained of

the Sun,
I. X hus it sufficiently appears, that the chief masculine deity of the Gentiles
was the Sun, adored, agreeably to the mystic theocrasy of Paganism, under a
great variety of names both in different countries and even in the same coun
try; which names, in the popular worship, were erected into so many distinct
gods.
But, while the Sun was their acknowledged principal divinity, they
entertained some very remarkable opinions concerning him, which are by no

means applicable to the literal Sun: and the origin of these opinions is in
fact explained by themselves ; and that in a manner, which is sufficiently in
telligible and unambiguous.
1. Among the ancient Egyptians, the Sun was represented under the figure
of a man sailing in a ship upon the ocean.1 Sometimes the ship was support
ed on the back of a crocodile : sometimes the man appeared, floating in the
ship, but at the same time seated . upon the aquatic lotos : and sometimes
the lotos was simply his vehicle, the ship being omitted.*
At other times
r
' Clem. Alex. Strom, lib. v. p. 566. Jamb, de Myster. sect. vii. p. 151. Porph. de ant.
nymph, p. 256. Plut. de Isid. p. 364.
1 Clem. Alex. Strom, lib. v. p. 566. Porph. apud Euseb. Praep. Evan. lib. iii. c. J), p. 6<K
Jamb, de Myster. sect. vii. p. 151.
THE ORIGIN OF PAGAN IDOLATR1 .

book iv.
216
again he was depicted, not as a full grown man, but as a child, yet still seated
within the calix of the mystic lotos : and in the Bembine table we find yet
another variety; for there the place of the man or the infant is occupied by
that amphibious animal the frog, which, as it similarly appears floating on the
lotos, must similarly be considered as a symbol of the Sun.1 The later
heathens attempted to give various refined physical reasons for such an ex
traordinary mode of hieroglyphical representation : but it yet remains not
very easy to conceive, why the literal Sun should have been esteemed a
mariner ; why the literal Sun should have been placed in a ship, and set
afloat on the ocean ; why the literal Sun should use the aquatic lotos as his
most proper vehicle ; why the literal Sun should be supported in his ship on
the back of a crocodile ; why the literal Sun should be most aptly symbolized
by a watery frog or a new-born infant in the calix of a lotos. This last part
of his character seemed so thoroughly ridiculous and unnatural to Julius
Firmicus, that he could not forbear exclaiming, Who ever beheld the Sun
personate a boy?% And well indeed might he ask such a question, if the
literal Sun were intended : but just as well might it be additionally asked ,
How can the fiery Sun be a watery frog, and with what propriety can he
be viewed as floating in the cup of' a lotos or as steering a ship over the
waves of the ocean ?
2. Yet, however singular these notions may be, they are far from being
peculiar to the Egyptian school of theology. Just the same mode of symbo
lizing still prevails among the Hindoos : and doubtless in both nations it ori
ginated from a similar train of ideas. The three great gods of Hindostan are
all equally declared to be the Sun : but still we find them, in the mythology of
that country, either seated on the lotos ; or sailing over the ocean in a ship ;
or floating upon the surface of the great deep, sometimes on the leaf of a
sacred tree, and sometimes on a huge sea-serpent coiled up in the form of a
boat.' So completely indeed do such speculations enter into the creed of
the Brahmens, that one of the members of their triad is said to have been
born as an infant out of the lotos, while another specially bears the name of
* Plut. de Isid. p. 355. Fig. in tab. Bemb.
* Jul. Firm, de error, prof. rel. p. 191 See Plate II. Fig. \.

Narayan or he who moves on the waters.
217
In exact accordance with this
part of his character, their solar god, under his title of Narayan, is repre
sented upon a large scale in the royal gardens of Cathmandu, as reclining on
a sort of bed which appears to float in the literal water of an artificial tank
or fountain, 1
3. This same floating Sun was not unknown to the Greeks, whose theology
was radically the same as that of Egypt and Hindostan. A curious fragment
of Stesichorus is yet extant, wherein he celebrates a voyage of the solar deity
over the broad expanse of the ocean in a golden cup. An exactly similar
story is told of Hercules, who was himself the Sun ; on which Macrobius
justly remarks, that his cup, as well as the cup of Bacchus, was a ship.
These fables originated from the circumstance of the yellow or golden cup of
the lotos being employed to represent the ship of the Sun. The notion may
be easily traced in the mythology of Greece and Egypt, but it is distinctly
avowed in that of Hindostan. We are told, that the cup of the lotos and
the ship of the solar Siva mean the same thing ; that this ship, and the sacred
cup or dish in which fruit and flowers are wont to be sacrificially offered to
the deities, are distinguished by one appellation ; and that the cup, being
thus designed to represent the ship, ought properly to be shaped like a boat,
though it is sometimes made of a round or of a square form. Similar ideas
prevailed among the Greeks. Macrobius not only tells us, that the cup of
Hercules, Bacchus, or the Sun, was a ship ; but he asserts, that the goblets,
known by the name of Carchesia, were so called in reference to the art of
navigation : and he adds, that it was one of these Carchesia, which Jupiter
save to Alcmene the mother of Hercules. So far indeed was the notion from
being lost, that we may collect from a fragment of Menander cited by Macro
bius, that at one period it was not unusual among the Greeks to designate
ships by the appellation of cups, much perhaps in the same manner as we are
wont to call them vessels. The maritime Venus-Colias, who was astronomi
cally the Moon, had her sacred navicular goblet, no less than Bacchus and
Hercules and the Sun ; though its place was often supplied by a large circular
sea-shell, within which the goddess appears standing upright : and we must
1 Asiat. Res. vol. viii. p. 52. vol. ii. p. 313. Moor's Hind. Panth. passim.
Pag. Idol.
vol. ii.
2 E
218
THE 0H1GIN OF PAGAN IDOLATRY.
not omit to observe, that these boat-like cups or imitative ships of the solar
deity were sometimes adorned with the figures of doves perching upon their
covers. *
4. So strongly was this idea of a mariner Sun impressed upon the minds of
the ancient pagans, that they even transferred it to the sphere. Not content
with making the Sun sail over the ocean in a ship, they considered the whole
solar system as one large vessel ; in which the seven planets act as sailors,
while the Sun, as the fountain of ethereal light, presides as the pilot or cap
tain. These eight celestial mariners, who navigate the ship of the sphere,
are clearly the astronomical representatives of the eight great gods of Egypt \
all of whom, including the Sun as their head, were wont (according to Por
phyry) to be depicted, not standing on dry land, but sailing over the ocean
in a ship. *
5. To the Sun, thus steering his planetary ship through the midst of hea
ven, the old theologists ascribed the guardianship of a gate or door, assigning
another similar door to the protection of the Moon. These imaginary doors
they placed in the two opposite tropics : and from them, they taught, that all
human souls were mysteriously born ; while the Sun and the Moon were
deemed the male and female principles of generation. Hence the former was
esteemed the creative Nous or Mind : and, just as the solar Brahm of the
Hindoos, and the solar Mithras of the Persians, were each believed to have
triplicated themselves, and thus to have produced three subordinate gods,
each of whom was nevertheless the Sun ; so the solar Nous, who was reck
oned the Life or Soul of the World, was thought to have especially begotten
three younger Noes, though all human souls were generally born from the
astronomical door over which he presided with his seven planetary companions
in his celestial ship.'
Much the same notions respecting this birth of souls
* Fragm. Stesich. apud Athen. Deipnos. lib. xi. p. 469. Macrob. Saturn, lib. v. c. 21.
Apc'lod. Bibl. lib. ii. c. 4. 10. Asiat. Res. vol. vi. p. 521. Athen. Deipnos. lib. xi. p. 474,
487, 490.
* Martian. Capell. Satyric. lib. ii. p. 43. Herod, lib. ii. c. 145. Porph. de ant. nymph, p.
256.
* Hence, in reference to the birth of Noah from the door, he, who was esteemed the Nous
or Intellect of the Universe, was wont to be denominated Nous from the door. Ilffi Ss try
xAij<riy Jiijve^Sija-ar, Novp row nwroy, xcw rtv Dvfakv Nouv, xcw ra roMura vfotrayogeutrayres.

may be traced in the sacred writings of the Hindoos.
219
We are told, that there
are seven worlds or heavens ; and that in one of these all living creatures,
which are destroyed by a deluge either of fire or water at the close of each
great period, are born again : whence it is called the world of births. And
this world of births is immediately connected with Om or the triple solar
divinity, the On of the Egyptians : for the devout aspirant, whenever he pro
nounces the sacred word Om, is directed to employ his thoughts with the
following meditation. Om! earth! sky! heaven! middle region! place of
births! mansion of the blessed! abode of truth. 1
II. Sometimes we find the Sun closely united with the ocean, though no
particular specification is made of his ship.
Thus, in the Hindoo mythology, the regent of the waters is said to have
made a road in untrodden space to receive the footsteps of the Sun, whose
office it is to restrain the daring profligacy of the wicked : and this mysterious
circumstance, we are told, is the most proper subject of meditation for the
aspirant who is about to purify himself by swimming. Thus, in the mytho
logy of the old Atlantians, the Sun was thought to have been plunged into
the Eridanus or Po; which, like the Nile of Egypt, was a sacred river
symbolizing the ocean : a story, whence the classical tale of Phaethon has ma
nifestly been borrowed ; but Phaethon, though made by the poets the offspring
of the Sun, was really the Sun himself. And thus, in the mythology of the
ancient Mexicans which their fathers certainly brought with them out of Asia,
the Sun is feigned to have once been drowned in the sea, when a former
world came to its close, and when all living things perished by water. 1
III. Sometimes again we meet with legends, the substance of which is,
that the Sun was pursued by the Ocean, that he escaped by taking refuge in a
floating island, and that he finally vanquished his aqueous enemy. Fables
of this description occur in Egypt, in Greece, and even in America.
1. Herodotus tells us, that near Buto there was a deep and broad lake,
Gregor. Nazianz. de Spirit. Sanct. Gregory unhappily fancies, as many moderns have done
after him, that by the mundane Nous the pagans darkly meant the Holy Ghost.
1 Porphyr. de antr. nymph, p. 263268. Macrob. in somn. Scip. lib. i. c. 20. p. 69.
Proc. in Plat. Tim. p. 93, 94, 95. Asiat. Res. vol. v. p. 348, 351. Macrob. Saturn, lib. ii
c.18. p. 201.
* Asiat. R*s. vol. v. p. 360. Diod. Bibl. lib. iii. p. 190. Sophoc. Elect, ver. 826. Purch.
Pilgrim, b. viii. c. 13. p. 806.
220
book iv.
THE ORIGIN OF PAGAN IDOLATHY.
jn which was a repured floating island.
In this island there was a large tem
ple dedicated to the Sun, whom the Egyptians most usually called Horns as
the Greeks did Phoebus or Apollo. The temple was furnished with three al
tars, agreeably to the prevailing opinion that the Sun triplicated himself or
produced out of his own essence three younger divinities. As for the island,
it was not supposed to have been always in a floating state, but to have lost
its firmness in consequence of the following circumstance. When Typhon,
whom the Egyptians acknowledged to be no other than the sea, was roaming
round the world in pursuit of the solar deity Horus, Latona, who was one
of the primitive eight gods and who dwelt in the city Buto, received him in
trust from Isis, and concealed him from the rage of his adversary in the sa
cred island Chemmis, which then first began to float. Afterwards he became
sufficiently powerful to quit his place of refuge and to expel Typhon who had
usurped his dominions : and his own reign then commenced in the place of
the temporary usurped domination of the ocean.1
. 2. The Greeks had a story, in all main points substantially the same, re
specting their Apollo ; who, as every schoolboy well knows, is so decidedly
the solar god, that the names of Apollo and the Sun are always used by the
poets convertibly and indifferently. The Hellenic fable indeed is palpably
nothing more than a repetition of the Egyptian one, adapted to a different
country. Python, we are told, was an immense serpent, the offspring of the
earth, gendered of the slime produced by the deluge. While Latona was
pregnant with Apollo and Diana, or the Sun and the Moon, this mon
ster so implacably pursued her, that no place could be found upon the sur
face of the whole earth where she might be delivered. Neptune therefore
caused the island of Delos to emerge out of the sea; in order that an asy
lum might be afforded to the persecuted goddess. Here she brought forth in
safety her double offspring, the Sun and the Moon, grasping an olive-tree in
her hands during the pains of parturition. At this period Delos was sup
posed to have floated in an erratic state on the surface of the waters : but
Apollo afterwards rendered it stable ; and at length slew the serpent Python,
which had pursued his mother with so much implacability.
*
* Herod, lib. ii. c. 156, 144.
* '
. .
221
In the present legend, Python is obviously the Egyptian Typhon or the

ocean, the infant Apollo is the infant Horus, the floating island Delos oc
cupies the place of the floating island Chemmis, and the Egean sea is sub
stituted for the lake of Buto. We additionally learn from the classical fable,
that Python or Typhon is not the ocean simply, but the ocean at the time of
the flood ; that the reason, why Latona could find no resting place, was, be
cause the whole earth was subjected to the dominion of Python, or in other
words was laid under water ; and that the precise period, when the Sun and
the Moon were born in the floating island, was that of the deluge. Such
being the case, since the classical tale is palpably the same as the Egyptian,
the latter must be understood in a similar manner. The time consequently,
when the solar god Horus was obliged to take refuge in the floating island
Chemmis, was that of the general flood : and, as Typhon or the ocean was
the agent that thus compelled him to conceal himself, the ocean at the epoch
of the flood must evidently have been intended.1
3. We find another parallel legend among the Peruvians ; which strongly
tends to prove, that their theology must have sprung from a common origin
with that of Greece and Egypt. When all mankind were swept away by
' Hyg. Fab. 140. Ovid. Metam. lib. i. ver. 434440. lib. vi. ver. 332334. Virg.
.flineid. lib. iii. ver. 75. Tzetz. in Lycoph. ver. 401. Callim. Hymn, ad Dian. ver. 35.
Tzetzes says, that Asteria, the sister of Latona, was first metamorphosed into a quail and af
terwards into the erratic island Delos. Asteria however was the same as Latona herself, as is
evident from the circumstance of that goddess being equally said to have been changed into a
qUail. Serv. in iEncid. lib. iii. ver. 72. Latona therefore must ultimately be identified with
the floating island. In fact, both she and Asteria (the Astoreth of the Phenicians) were
equally the great mother or receptacle of the hero-gods, here symbolized by a floating island.
As the raven was a bird sacred to Apollo, though deemed a messenger of evil tidings: so I
suspect, that in this part of the legend a quail has been substituted for a dove. Supposing this
to be the case, we shall have an exact inversion of the Hindoo fable, which relates, that at the
time of the deluge Parvati first assumed the form of the ship Argha and afterwards that of a
dove. I am the more confirmed in my conjecture, because we find, that Jupiter himself
was sometimes thought to have taken the shape of a quail no less than his paramour Latona,
much in the same manner as Siva metamorphoses himself into a dove in order that he may still
join his consort Argha when changed into the female of that bird. Schol. in Pind. Nem. Od.
i. ver. 2. Asiat. Res. vol. vi. p. 523. Apollod. Bibl. lib. iii. c. 10. 3.
22
book iv.
the waters of the deluge, a personage named

great lake Titiaca, and became the founder
species began once more to multiply upon the
ship of this Virachoca was joined with that
Virachoca emerged from the

of Cuzco. Then the human
face of the earth. The wor
of the Sun ; or rather, when
viewed astronomically, he was himself the solar god. Accordingly, the Pe

ruvians shewed in the same sacred lake Titiaca a small island ; where they
feigned that the Sun hid himself, and was thus preserved during the general de
struction of mankind by the flood. In this island, as in the Egyptian island
Chemmis and the Greek island Delos, there was a temple dedicated to the
Sun ; and the place itself was accounted holy. Here then, the symbolical
serpent being omitted, we are literally informed, that the Sun concealed him
self in a small island, in order that he might be saved from the fury of an
universal deluge.1
IV. As the Sun is thus set afloat by the old mythologists in a ship, in the
cup of the lotos, or in a small erratic island ; and as his eventful voyage is
expressly referred to the time of the flood : so we may further observe, that
he is represented as peculiarly delighting to haunt the sacred mountain, which
first raised its head above the retiring waters, and which received upon its
summit the Ark of him who was preserved from the general destruction.
Thus the favourite residence of the Greek solar deity was Parnassus,
where Hellenic legends fixed the appulse of the ship of Deucalion : thus
the solar Siva of the Hindoos, the mariner of the ship Argha, is exhibited
as dwelling conspicuous in his eight forms on the Cashgarian peak of Meru
or Cailasa, where the ark of Menu and his seven companions rests after the
deluge : and thus, in the Zend-Avesta, the Sun is described as ruling over
the world from the top of mount Albordi, which is said to have been the first
land that appeared above the waves of the retreating flood.
V. Nor yet are these the w hole of the wonderful things, which the gen
tile mythologists tell us of the Sun.
The old Orphic poet, the priests of Egypt, and the Brahmens of Hindostan, agree in maintaining, that he was born out of an egg, which had
floated on the ocean, and which had been tossed about at the mercy of the
1 Cieca apud Porch. Pilgrim, b. ix. c. 9. p. 874.
223
elements : and he was thus produced, both in his simple state of unity, and
as he had become three by a mysterious act of self-multiplication.1 Certain
powerful families, both in Hellas, Hindostan, and Peru, which claimed a
proud sacerdotal and military preeminence above the subject multitude, af
fected to trace their descent from him, and in an eminent manner styled
themselves Heliadce or Surya-bans or Children of the Sun : yet was he
likewise acknowledged to be the common father both of hero-gods and of
men, the primeval being from whom all were equally born, the personage
who himstlf was specially the first-produced.* Under the names either of
Sames or A res or Horus or Hetius, as the Greeks rightly translated the last
of these titles all of which equally denote the Sun, he was claimed by the
Assyrians and the Egyptians as one of their most ancient fabulous sove
reigns : and, as the latter gave him a crocodile for the vehicle of himself
and his ship and as their ancient king Menes was saved on the back of a
crocodile during the prevalence of an imaginary local deluge, as the Egypt
ians denominated that animal Campsa and as the word Campsa also signi
fied an ark ; it is evident, that Menes and the Sun must be the same per
son, and that the hieroglyphical crocodile and the ship of the Sun must
mean the same thing.' In fine, the Hindoo Brahmens assert, that the solar
deity, who is distinguished by such various and remarkable characteristics,
began his devotion immediately after the flood, and continued it during the
space of a hundred years.4
VI. Notions like these would in themselves be sufficient to induce a be
lief, that, when the Gentiles worshipped the Sun and the Host of Heaven,
they did not worship them simply, but associated with them certain human
characters who had really performed the actions which were thence ascribed
to the celestial bodies. Such a conclusion would be the almost inevitable
result of the preceding inquiry, even if no direct information had been af Orph. Hymn. v. 1, 2, 8. Fragm. apud Olympiod. Comm. in Phileb. Gesn. edit. p. 410.
Euseb. Praep. Evan. lib. iii. c. 1 1. Instit. of Menu. c. 1. 9~ -12.
* Orph. Hymn. v. 1, 3, 8, 9. Instit. of Menu. c. i. 9, 31, 32, 33.
3 Chron. Paschal, p. 37. Diod. Bibl. lib. i. p. 13. Palaeph. Fragm. p. 65.
ii. c. 4, 69. Diod. Bibl. lib. i. p. 80. Ka/*<J/, ftjxij. Hesych. Lex.
4 Asiat.Res. vol. iii. p. 157.
Herod, lib.
CHA,,, *,

book iv.
forded us on the subject : but, so far is this from being the case, that the an
cient mythologists have been as unreservedly communicative as could well
have been desired.
Hesiod informs us, that the demon-gods were the souls of those men, who
lived in the first or golden age, and who were afterwards worshipped by their
posterity on account of their extraordinary virtues.1 The author, who writes
under the name of Hermes-Trismegistus, asserts, that Esculapius, Osiris,
and Thoth, were all holy men, whose souls were worshipped after their death
by the Egyptians.* Much the same account is in effect given by Diodorus,
when he tells us, that Osiris, Vulcan, and other cognate deities, were all
originally sovereigns of the people, by whom they were venerated.1
Hence
the fathers were wont to reproach the Gentiles with their adoration of what
were no better than so many dead men, whose very bones and coffins were
shewn as relics.* In a similar manner, some of the more intelligent among
the Hindoos fairly acknowledge, that their gods were once men like them
selves : and the Buddhists, though they claim the highest honours for their
deity, confess that after all he was but a mortal.1 But perhaps the most system
atic and explicit testimony to this purpose is to be found in the writings of
Cicero, because he positively declares that such was the occult doctrine taught
in the Mysteries. After enumerating various instances of men being ele
vated after their death to the rank of gods, What, says he to the person
with whom he is engaged in disputation, it not almost all heaven, not to cany
on this detail any further, filled with the human race ? But, if I should
search and examine antiquity, and go to the bottom of this affair from the
things which the Greek writers have delivered, it would be found, that even
those very gods themselves, who are deemed the Dii majorum gentium, had
their original here below, and ascended from hence into heaven.
Inquire to
whom those sepulchres belong, which are so commonly shewn in Greece. Re

member, for you are initiated, what you have been taught in the Mysteries :
'
1
*
*
s
Hesiod. Oper. et dier. lib. i. ver. 120125.

Herm. Trism.apud Mede's Apost.of latter times, part i. c. 4.
Diod.Bibl.lib. i. p. 13, 14, 15.
Clem. Alex. Cohort, p. 29. Arnob. adv. gent. lib. vi. Jul. Firm, de error, prof. rel. p. 4, 13.
Moor's Hind. Panth. p. 14. Asiat. Res. vii. p. 34, 35. vol. viii. p. 352.

you will then at length understand, how far this matter may be carried.*
Accordingly, he himself tells us in another place, that such was the univer
sal doctrine of the Mysteries, wherever they might be celebrated : which
in effect proves the very point I am contending for ; namely that all the sys
tems of pagan mythology originated from a common source, and taught the
same speculative notions. What think you, says he, of those, who assert,
that valiant or famous or powerful men have obtained divine honours after
death, and that these are the very gods now become the object of our adora
tion? Euhemerus tells us, when these gods died, and where they were bu
ried. I forbear to speak of the. sacred rites of Eleusis, into which the most
remote nations are initiated ; Ipass by Samothrace and the Mysteries of
Lemnos, whose hidden Orgies are celebrated in darkness and amidst the thick
shades of groves andforests : since we learn from them rather the nature
of things, than that of beings who may properly be esteemed gods.* ,
1. The gods of the Gentiles being thus mere men, the question is, how they
came to be worshipped in conjunction with the Sun and the Host of Heaven.
Here again we are by no means at a loss for the desired information.
The notion, that the souls of the hero-gods were either translated to the
celestial bodies or were emanations from them, constituted a very prominent
part of ancient Paganism."
Thus we find it to be a prevailing idea, that the Sun, the Moon, and the
Stars, were not mere inert matter ; but, on the contrary, beings wise, intel
ligent, and actuated by a divine spirit.' Posidonius tells us, that the Stoics
supposed each Star to be the body of a deity : and Austin represents them
as maintaining, that the Stars were parts of Jupiter or the Sun, that they
* Cicer. Tusc. Disp. 1. i. c. 12, 13. See also the apocryphal book of Wisdom xiv. 12.
* Cicer. de nat. deor. lib. i. c.42. These two citations from Cicero are adduced by Bp.
Warburton to establish his theory respecting the Mysteries : they certainly prove, that the
Gentiles worshipped dead men. When Cicero speaks of the Orgies teaching the nature of
things, he refers no doubt to that part of them, which set forth the doctrine of a succession
of similar worlds, or which described (as Jamblichus speaks) the conturbation of the heavens,
the reyealing of the secrets of Isis, the display of the ineffable wonders of the great abyss, and
the resting of the ship Baris. Jambl. de Mystcr. sect. vi. c. 51.
* Toy ijAioy, xou o-tXijyijy, xa rwy aWvty atrguiv Sxaoroy, eirai yofoy x ppoviju.oi' xttt TUfivw
ti>i . Zen. apud Stob.
Pag. Idol.
vol. ii.
2 F
THE ORIGIN' OF PAGAN IDOLATRY.

book it.
were a|i living creatures, and that they all had rational souls.1
This last wri
ter also mentions it to have been an established opinion, that, from the high
est circuit of heaven to the sphere of the Moon, there are numerous ethereal
souls which ought to be worshipped as celestial gods, and that these souls
are the Stars and the Planets which may not only be comprehended by the
intellect but even perceived by the eye.* The same notion prevailed among
the Phenicians : for, with Cumberland, I think it abundantly evident, that
the intelligent oviform animals, which Sanchoniatho calls Zophesemin or
Overlookers of the heavens, are the Stars, and not, as Bochart imagines, the
angels.'
Wc find it also among the ancient Babylonians : for, in the ChaU
dean oracles, the great father is said to have constituted a septenary of living
erratic animals, which are the seven Worlds or seven Planets* Even some
of the Jewish writers did not escape the general infection, but were led to
adopt the theologically philosophical reveries of the Gentiles, Philo calls
the Stars divine images : and, in what sense he calls them so, appears from
his also denominating them incorruptible and immortal souls.* So likewise
Maimonides declares, that the Stars and Spheres are every one of them
animated, being endued with life, knowledge, and understanding ; and that
they acknowledge him, at whose command the world was made, each of
them, according to their degree and excellency, praising and honouring him
as the angels do.6
The reason, why the heavenly bodies were thus deemed living intelligences
was their supposed union with the souls of deceased heroes : and, as the Sun
was the brightest of those bodies, it was naturally thought the peculiar resi
dence of the parent and chief of those hero-gods. This opinion was stre
nuously held by the Platonists of the Alexandrian school. All the superior
gods they equally esteemed to be the Sun : and the inferior gods they ima1 AffTfov swat <prtiri <ruiiia. flsiov. Posid. apud Stob. August, de civ. Dei. lib. iv. c. 1,1^
z August, de civ. Dei. lib. vii. c. 6.
3 Sanchon. apud Euseb. Prsep. Evan. lib. i. c. 10. Cumberland's Sanchon. p. 21. Bo
chart. Chanaan. lib. ii. c. 2. p. 706.
* Fran. Patric. Orac. Zoroast. tit. Oupavo;. p. 44. edit. Stanley.
5 AyaAoara huou Phil, de opif. mund. Apflaprouj xji atayaray v|/y%aj. Phil, de somn.
Jesude Hattorah, c. iii. 9. apud Cudw. Intdl. Syst. p. 471.
227
gined to be deified heroes, whose souls dwelt in the bodies of the Stars.1 In
this doctrine they are fully supported by the whole tenor of ancient mytho
logy. The Egyptian priests, as we learn from Plutarch, taught expressly,
that Cronus, Osiris, Horus, and all their other principal deities, were once
mere men ; but that, after they died, their souls migrated into some one or
other of the heavenly bodies, and became the genii or animating spirits of
their new celestial mansions.* Since therefore Osiris was declared to be the
Sun ; it is evident, that, according to this system, the soul of the man, who
was distinguished by that appellation, was thought to have been translated
into the Solar Orb. In a similar manner we are told by Sanchoniatho, that
Ilus or Cronus was once a man, that he was deified by the Phenicians after
his death, and that his soul was believed to have passed into the Planet which
bears his name.' So again, among the Hindoos, the seven Rishis, who
were preserved in an ark with Menu-Satyavrata, now animate the seven
Stars of the great bear ; while the souls of their wives shine conspicuously
ki the Pleiades.4 These were the gods, whom the Latins called Dtastri, be
cause their residence was in the Stars. They were thought to have been
once illustrious men ; but it was supposed, that their souls after death
mounted to the Constellations as a reward of their exalted virtue. Such
was Julius Cesar, whom the flattery indeed of the Augustan court elevated
to a Star, yet a flattery perfectly accordant with the prevailing speculations
of Paganism : and such doubtless were the Baalim or Siddim, so frequently
-mentioned in Holy Scripture.
From this source plainly originated the primeval disposition of the hea
venly bodies into distinct Constellations, each bearing the name either of
6ome hero or of some mysterious hieroglyphic. They, who had been most
celebrated upon earth, still retained their preeminence on the sphere; and,
to omit other more obscure Catasterisms, the warrior Nimrod still towere
aloft in the constellation Orion; while, in the remarkable groupe of the ship
Plot. Enncad. ii. lib. 9.
* Tas is tyuxas Xa.jt.vciy aarga. Plut. de Isid.p. 354.
3 Euseb. Prsep. Evan. lib. i. c. 10.
* Asiat. Res. vol. ix. p. 83, 85. Moor's Hind. Panth. p. 85.
'
CHAP- "

book iy.
Argo, the dove, the raven, the altar, the victim, and the sacrificing Centaur,
we may still read the well-known history of the deluge.
Sometimes, by a yet further refinement, the genius of the Sun was thought
to descend from heaven, and to become incarnate in a human body. Thus
the emperor Julian, who was deeply versed in the Mysteries of that fantastic
theology which he preferred to the rational simplicity of the Gospel, main
tained, that Esculapius was manifested upon earth in a human form by the
generative power of the Sun : from which we are to understand, I conceive,
that the fabled god of healing was an emanation of the Sun incarnate in the
body of a man ; for by other mythologists Esculapius is positively declared
to be the Sun himself.1 And thus the Hindoos distinctly assign a two-fold
nature to their Menu : in one point of view, he was a mere man ; but, in
another, he was an emanation of the Sun.* But, whether the soul of the
man was thought to be translated to the orb of the Sun, or the genius of the
Sun to animate the body of the man, this notion of a double nature may be
clearly traced throughout the whole mythology of the pagans, and is in fact
necessarily required by every page in the history of their gods one and
many.
2. The inquiry having been conducted thus far, it only remains to learn,
what particular man was venerated by the Gentiles in close union with the
solar deity.
As the attributes of the man have, in consequence of this union, been as
cribed to the Sun ; the various remarkable opinions entertained of the Sun
will enable us to determine the man, who was worshipped in conjunction
with him. Hence we may gather from the preceding investigation, that the
' Cyril, cont. Julian, lib. -vi . p. 200.
* Whenever the deity condescends to be born of woman, the person is one, but there arc two
natures. To this distinction ice must carefully attend in order to reconcile many seeming con
tradictions in the Puranas; and more particularly so with respect to Vaivaswata and Satyavrata, who are acknowledged to be but one person. The divine nature is an emanation of Vishnou in hit character of the Sun ; and Satyavrata is the human nature : these two natures often
act independently of each other, and may exist at the same time in different places. Asiat.
Res. vol. vi. p. 479. This distinction must equally be attended to in every other system of
pagan mythology.
THE OKIGIN OF PAGAN IDOLATRY.

man in question must have been one, who performed an extraordinary voyage in a ship with seven companions represented by the seven planets ; who
was compelled to hide himself in a small floating island by the violence of the
sea ; who was born from an egg or from the calix of the lotos, and who was
thence occasionally depicted as an infant; who mysteriously triplicated himself,
by which can only be meant that this man was the father of three sons ; who,
sailing in his ship, presided over a gate or door, from which all human souls
were born; who delighted to haunt a lofty mountain, where the ark of one
preserved during an universal flood was thought to have rested ; who was
once plunged in a remarkable manner into the ocean ; and who was the pa
rent, not only of a powerful family that early claimed and acquired a decided
superiority, but even of the whole race of mankind. With respect to the
time when these circumstances occurred, we are told very explicitly, that it
was, when all the world was inundated by water, and when all men perished
except this solar personage and his companions : and, as for the hieroglyphical manner in which they are sometimes detailed, we may clearly enough
perceive, even independent of many positive assertions to that purpose, that
the egg, the cup, the lotos, the crocodile, and the floating island, in which or
out of which the man either sails or is figuratively born, must all be the same
thing as his ship. Such being the case, it is sufficiently obvious, that the
man, whom the Gentiles have in all ages and countries worshipped in con
junction with the Sun, must be the great father Noah ; that his ship must be
the Ark ; that the sidereal door, through which all living souls are born,
must be the door of the Ark elevated to the sphere ; that his favourite
mountain must, in the first instance, be Ararat ; that his three sons must be
Shem, Ham, and Japhet ; that his seven nautical companions must be
the family of Noah ; that his birth from the lotos or egg or floating island
must mean the allegorical birth of Noah from the Ark, an idea which ne
cessarily involves the fable of his infancy ; that his victory over the ocean
must denote the recovery of the earth from the wide domination of the flood ;
that his being reputed the first sovereign of every ancient people naturally
followed from his being the common father and patriarchal king of the whole
human race ; and that the family, which peculiarly claimed to be his descend
ants though they admitted that all men equally derived their origin from him,
must be the family of Cush, which, under the auspices of Nimrod, esta-
230
ook iv.
THE ORIGIN OF PAGAN' IDOLATIir.
blished the only real universal empire, and which ever since has retained the
sovereignty over the other children of Noah.1
This would be the inevitable conclusion from the preceding inquiry, even
if the old mythologists had been silent upon the point. But they are not
silent : they more than once positively tell us, that their solar god was he,
who, in his human capacity, was reckoned the subordinate agent in bringing
on the deluge, and who himself was preserved in an ark from the general
destruction.
Thus, in the Zend-Avesta, the man-bull Taschter, who with
three associates causes the whole earth to be inundated, and who exists upon
that earth in three forms, is yet spoken of as being celestially the Sun.
Thus the Hindoo Menu-Satyavrata, who is saved in an ark with the seven
ltishis at the time of the general deluge, is declared to be also an emana
tion of the solar deity ; whence he bears the additional name of Vaivaswata.
Thus the Egyptian Menes, who is saved from a flood on the back of the
hieroglyphical crocodile and who is certainly the Menu of the Brahmens, must
clearly be identified with the Sun, because the Sun is exhibited as equally
using the crocodile for his vehicle. And thus the British Menwydd or Menu,
who is described as the head of three subordinate Menus, who is celebrated
as the primeval author of the Mysteries, who in the ship Ked sails over an
ocean that has no shores when all mankind perish except himself and seven
companions, and who therefore like the Egyptian Menes must necessarily be
identified with the Indian Menu, is yet positively declared to be the Sun
when his character is viewed astronomically.1
Thus, so far as I can judge, no position can be more satisfactorily esta-
1 Vide infra b. vi. c. 2, 3.

1 Davies's Mythol. p. 106, 110, 121, 176. Menwydd was the same as Hu : but Hu was
fhe Sun. Bp. Cumberland and Dr. Shuckiord think, that Menes, whom Herodotus makes
the first king of Egypt, was the scriptural Mizraim, It is not improbable, when we consider
what the leading doctrine of Paganism was, that Mizraim, like Enoch, Cush, Nimrod, and
Abraham, may have been deemed one of the subordinate manifestations of the great father;
but the primitive Menes, who was saved from drowning at the era of an inundation by a
Campsa, a word whirh indifferently signifies an ark and a crocodile, must clearly have been
Noah or the Menu-Satyavrata of Hindostan. Cumberland's Sanchon. p. 5460. Shuckford's Connect, vol. i. book iv. p. 207.
THE 01UGIM OP PAGAN IDOLATRY.
231
Wished than this : that, when the Gentiles worshipped the Sun as their prin
cipal divinity, they did not worship him simply and absolutely as the mere
chief of the heavenly luminaries ; but they adored in conjunction with him,
and perpetually distinguished by his name, the patriarch Noah, whose soul
after death they feigned to have migrated into his orb and to have become the
intellectual regent of it.
:
Yet, although they venerated Noah as the solar deity or (to adopt the
phraseology of the Chaldean oracles) as the one fire from which all things
were produced, they did not venerate him exclusively as such.1 Agreeably
to the doctrine of a succession of similar worlds, each of which alike com
menced with an universal father and three sons who had floated on the
surface of a preceding deluge, the person worshipped in the Sun was not
simply Noah, but Noah viewed as a transmigratory reappearance of Adam;
nor yet merely Noah as a reappearance of Adam alone, but Noah consi
dered as one of the numerous or rather innumerable manifestations of the
great father. In absolute strictness of speech then, according to the system
of the pagan hierophants, their floating solar deity is that fabled compound
or transmigrating personage, whom they denominated the great father both
of gods and men, and whom they deemed at once the destroyer and repro
ducer of the world. What, in naked truth, is properly the character of
Noah does indeed largely predominate in this personage : but, though his at
tributes are eminently diluvian ; we find him, in various instances, also sus
taining the character of Adam. He may be viewed therefore, when the fa
ble of an endless succession of worlds is traced up to its real origin, as a
mixed being, who unites in his own person the characters of the two great
fathers of the human race.
VII. There is much even in the physical character of the Sun; which
led the Gentiles, according to their favourite mode of speculating, to adopt
him as the best astronomical representative of their great father.
His daily descent below the horizon and his daily rising above it visibly
exhibited to the devout aspirant the aphanism and reappearance of their chief
god. By this was really meant the entrance into, and the quitting of, the
1 E(y iravta *ujoy sVof exygyouirttx.
Orac Magic. Zoroatt. p. 22. Opsop.
232
Ark ; when the great father vanished out of one world, and manifested him
self again into another : but it was variously described, as a death and a revi
val, as a deep sleep and an expergefaction, as an entrance into the womb and
a new birth, as a descent into the infernal regions and a return from them.
Accordingly we are told, that, while the Sun was invisible beneath the ho
rizon, he shadowed out the great father, as an infernal god, or as inclosed
in a state of temporary death within his ark which was deemed his coffin ;
but that, while he was visible above the horizon, he represented the same
great father as emerging from Hades and as restored to life and liberty.1
Each day, at his rising and setting, he displayed a lively image of his hu
man associate, the diluvian patriarch, by seeming to float on the surface of
the mighty ocean. Each year, by his departure into the southern tropic and
his return with new life and vigour into the northern, he again exhibited the
allegorical death and revival of his mortal antitype within the precise literal
period, allowing for a few days excess, of the confinement of Noah within
the Ark ; that period, which the Hindoos celebrate as the great year of the
solar Brahma's sleep within the egg as it floats on the surface of the in
termediate deluge.* And lastly, as the ruler of the seven planets with whom
as his companions he navigates the great ship of the heavens, he afforded to
his enraptured votaries the edifying astronomical spectacle of the great fa
ther presiding over the seven gods and with them jointly constituting that
primeval ogdoad of deities so highly venerated in Egypt and throughout the
pagan world : while, in his three altitudes of morning, noon, and evening,
he displayed himself as a mysterious triplication of one and the same Sun,
analogous to the generative triplication of the patriarch in the persons of his
three children.5
* Macrob. Saturn, lib. i. c. 18. p. 200. c. 21. *Macrob. Saturn. lib. i. c. 18. p. 200,201.
5 The Hindoos declare, that Brahm or the Sun is the triad Brahma-Vishnou-Siva as he ap
pears at these three altitude! : yet, in their human capacities, these three gods are evidently
first the three sons of Adam, and afterwards those of Noah.
CHAPTER
III.
Respecting the division of the gentile mythohgists into two great

primeval sects.
I. JL hough all the Gentiles in every quarter of the globe worshipped the
great father as their principal divinity, and though all their various gods
ultimately resolve themselves into that ancient compound and transmigrating
personage viewed as multiplying himself by a mysterious act of triplication :
yet we may distinctly trace the existence of two principal sects, who agreed
indeed to venerate the same being, but who differed in the peculiar mode of
venerating him. The difference chiefly consists in the greater or less com
plexity of the two systems : and, even when they are found in decided hos
tility to each other, they are not more unlike than those of Rome and Ge
neva in the Christian world. Very frequently however they have ami
cably blended together : all distinction has been nearly lost between them :
and the two have immemorially enjoyed their respective votaries in common.
Of these, we may term the one the Osiric or Bacchic or Saivic or Brahmenical superstition : and the other, the Buddhic or Thothic or Hermetic or
Samanian. Throughout India' they yet exist in a separate state, and their
adherents view each other with sentiments of the most malignant bigotry :
Pag. Idol.
' I use the word India in the large sense of the ancients.
vol. ii.
2G
234
THE ORIGIN OP PAGAN IDOLATHY.
yet, from the palpable similarity of the two religions in essentials, there can
be no doubt, as it has justly been observed, either that the one is the child
of the other, or that the two have branched off from a common original.
This has occasioned much discussion, whether of them ought to be esteemed
the most ancient : but the mode,
in which the discussion, has been
conducted, appears to. me- not at all- to, bear upon the real merits of
the question.
It is in fact rather a dispute, which of the two was
first established in India, than which of them could abstractedly and from
its primeval origin claim the priority. I certainly think with Mr. Joinville,
that there is considerable reason for believing that Buddhism preceded
Brahmenism among the Hindoos : but this, so far as I can judge, leaves the
true question wholly undecided ; for the former might be more ancient in
Hindostan than the latter, without being so in regard to its original institu
tion.
At the same time, one of his arguments, though somewhat irrelevant
according to the limited manner in which he treats the subject, tends strongly
to establish the propriety of the hypothesis, that Buddhism was in the first
instance antecedent to Brahmenism. The more finished and elaborate sys
tem is usually posterior to that, which is less so. But Buddhism is in many
respects crude, and simple, and unformed : while Brahmenism is the very
reverse. The presumption therefore is, that the latter is only a more finished
exhibition of the former; and, consequently, that Buddhism is more ancient
than Brahmenism.'
II. Yet, although the priority ought perhaps to be conceded to Budd
hism, such priority can only be trifling. We find each system existing in
almost every part of the world, either separately, or conjointly with the
other system. Hence, every argument, which proves that the one must
have originated when all mankind, formed but one community in one region,
will equally prove that the other cannot have had a more recent origin. The
rise therefore of both must be referred to a period not later than the era of
the building of the tower under the auspices of Nimrod. On the whole,
I am inclined to believe, that the more simple Buddhic superstition was
the first political corruption of Patriarchism, the commencement of what
1 Asiat. Res. *ol. vii. p. 398 et infra.
235
Epiphanius calls the Scythic or Cuthic heresy : while the more complex Brahmenical superstition (though in all probability it has received
many subsequent additions) was the completion and perfection of that
heresy, denominated in this latter state by the same writer Hellenism or
JonismS
III. In all ages, the warlike Chasas or Chusas or Goths or Scythians
have peculiarly attached themselves to ;the Buddhic superstition. These
are the comparatively unmixed descendants of the original sacerdotal and
military castes, the genuine children of the Babylonic Cuthim of Nimrod.*
On the other hand, the various tribes, who retired to the several places of
their allotted settlement under a Cuthic priesthood and nobility of an en
tirely distinct race from themselves, appear to have either affected the
Brahmenical superstition or to have carried off both systems which in time
were reconciled and blended together into one.' The votaries of these two
modes of worship certainly existed in India, separate from each other, so
early as the times of Strabo, Porphyry, and Clemens Alexandrinus : for
they all positively declare, that the Hindoo theologists were divided into two
sects, the Brachmans or Brahmcns and the Samaneans or Sarmaneans or
Germanes ; and, while Clemens specifically mentions the god Buddha by
name, Strabo veiy accurately remarks that the Brachmans were more regu
lar and systematic in their scheme of doctrine than the others.4 Clemens
further observes, that the Samaneans were peculiarly the priests of the Bactrians : and such they continue even to the present day ; for the Chasas of
Bokhara and Cashgar are still, like their ancestors, devoted to the worship
of Buddha or Saman.5 The Buddhists of that country insist, that their re
ligion is no modern figment, but has existed from the very beginning.6 In
saying this, I believe them to speak the truth, provided we limit the begiar
niug of their theology to the era of Nimrod. It is evident, that their sys
tem was not of novel origin in the days of the authors to whom I have just
1 Vide infra b. vi. c. 2. IV. 2.
1 Vide infra b. vi. c. 2. $ IV. 1. c. 4. I, II.
3 Vide infra b. vi. c. 2. VI. c. 3. $ VI.
* Strab. Geog. lib. xv. p. 712. Porph, de abstin. lib. iv. 17. Clem. Alex. Strom, lib. i.
p. 305.
5 Clem. Strom, lib. i..p. 305.
* Asiat. Res. vol. vi. p. 531.
CHAP" ",,

book it.
referred : and, in searching for its first institution, I see not how we can
reasonably stop short of the great Babylonian apostasy.
IV. By the destruction of idolatry throughout Europe and the west of
Asia, Buddhism reigns at present over a larger portion of the globe than
Brahmenism. The latter is confined to India : while the former not only
shares that country with it, but prevails from the very north of Tartary to the
island of Ceylon, and from the Indus to Siam and China and Japan. Its
principal seat is Thibet, Boutan, and Cashgar : countries, which have ever
formed one of the chief settlements of the Chasas or Scythians, and which
are thence consistently deemed the cradle of Buddhism. Yet this, if I mis
take not, is but a local appropriation. As
been transferred from Armenia to the high
the head of the Ganges : so has the origin
exactly similar removal. When a branch
Paradise and mount Ararat have

land of Cashgar and Bokhara at
of Samanianism experienced an
of the warlike Cuthim migrated
in an unmixed state from the plains of Sbinar to the lofty region of the In
dian Caucasus, they brought with them that Buddhic superstition which
was so immediately founded on the history of Paradise and the deluge ; and
to that peculiar form of old mythology their house seems to have pertina
ciously adhered in all its other settlements, until it relinquished it either for
the light of Christianity or for the imposture of Mohammedism.
CHAPTER
IV
Respecting the human character of the greatfather, as-exhibited in

the Osiric or Bacchic or Saivic or Brahmenical superstition.
.A.LL the great gods of the Gentiles ultimately resolve themselves into one
deity, known by many different names ; and that deity, we are positively
told, is the Sun. Yet, though the Sun was their principal male divinity, his
character was not purely Sabian or astronomical. The solar orb, to adopt
the language of the Orphic poet, was but the heavenly body of the splendid
god Helms.1 And this god, under his various appellations, is confessed by
the Gentiles themselves to sustain a second and mortal character. But the
character, which he thus sustains, will be found on examination to identify
itself, by no unequivocal tokens, with that of Noah viewed as a reappearance
of Adam : hence he is celebrated, with perfect accuracy, as the great com
mon father both of hero-gods and of men. In this capacity he was equally
venerated by two sects, into which the ancient idolaters appear to have been
divided as early as the building of the Babylonic tower : for, whatever differ
ence there might be in the mode of worshipping or describing the great father,
the ptrson was alike adored by the votaries of each superstition.
I shall at present consider the human character of the great father, as ex' Fragm. Orph. apud Macrob. Saturn, lib. i. c. 18.
238
hibited, in different countries and under various appellations, by the adhe

rents of what may be termed the Osiric or Bacchic or Saivic or Brahmenical
superstition.
I. In Egypt, the transmigrating patriarch was denominated Osiris; and
the younger god Horus was esteemed his offspring : but this descent is purelymythological : for, as Osiris and . Horus are alike declared to be the Sun
in their astronomical capacity; so, in their human capacity, they are each
plainly the great father. Hence we find a very .strong resemblance between
their several legends. If Horus be constrained by Typhon to take refuge in
a floating island ; Osiris is similarly compelled by him to enter into a floating
ark. If Horus be reputed to suffer death and afterwards to be restored to
life; Osiris is thought to have experienced a perfectly analogous death and
revival. If Isis wanders over the world. in quest of Horus ; she makes exactly
the same search for the lost Osiris. If she carefully collects the scattered
limbs of Horus, and afterwards reanimates his at length united frame; she
performs also for the murdered Osiris the self-same good offices. If Horus
be torn into seven pieces by the Titans ; Osiris is similarly torn by the Titans
into fourteen pieces, which number is the mere reduplicate of seven.
Thus,
their enemies are the same : the calamities, which they endure, are the same :
and their final triumph is the same. They plainly, in short, constitute but a
single character : and this character was divided between two deities, because
it was viewed under two somewhat different lights; yet one person was still
shadowed out by each.
Horus was represented as an infant, cither sailing in a ship, or floating in
the golden cup of the lotos, or seated on a crocodile, or swathed (as in the
Bembine table) after the manner of the mummies : and he seems designed to
typify the diluvian god, as born again from the Ark like a child from its mo
ther, as returning to life after the period of Ms mystical death, as entering
upon a new state of existence in a new world, and as finally triumphant over
every attack of the ocean ; designed, that is to say, more peculiarly to exhi
bit the postdiluvian, or mystically regenerated, great father.
Osiris, on the contrary, appears to be the same person considered more
generally : he is Noah in every part of his character, Noah both antediluvian
and postdiluvian.
Thus, in one point of view, Noah the antediluvian, when
Q39
considered with reference to the second great father's existence after the
flood, precedes him ; and is then the parent and husband of the Ark, that
mysterious mother both of the renovated world and of the great father
himself : as such, he is Osiris, the consort of Isis and the sire of the in
fant Horus. But, in another point of view, Noah the postdiluvian, when
considered with reference to the great father's existence before the flood,
succeeds him; and, proceeding from the womb of the Ark which is the great
father's consort, displays himself in the character of their son: as such, he
is Horus or the younger Oskis, the offspring of Isis and the elder Osiris.
Some refinement of this nature, which indeed was the almost inevitable
consequence of the various degrees of relationship sustained by the great
father towards the great mother, may be traced with sufficient clearness in
the avowed notions of the Egyptians, themselves. Plutarch tells us, that they
esteemed Osiris as the beginning, Isis as the receptacle, and Horus as the
completion : 1 and he speaks of Isis, as being the mundane house or habita
tion of Horus, .the seat of generation, the nurse of the world, the universal
recipient. 1 Simplicius ascribes the same character to the Syrian fish-goddess
Derceto or Atargatis : for he represents her, as being the place or habitation
of the gods ; and he adds, that, like the Egyptian Isis with whom she ought
doubtless to be identified, she contained, inclosed within her womb, what he
calls the specialities or proper natures of many deities. ' Such phraseology,
when the history of Osiris and Horus is considered, must relate to the Ark ;
though, as the great father was Adam no less than Noah, without excluding
the Earth or the greater World which was ever associated in the minds of the
ancient hierophants with the Ark or the smaller World.
Osiris then is Noah anterior to the deluge; yet, as Ins history, shews,
without excluding any other part of that patriarch's character : while Horus,
the mythological son of Osiris and Isis, represents to us the same person,
born as an infant from the womb of the Ark, and finally prevailing over the
ravages of the ocean.
1. Agreeably to such an arrangement, Horus, as we have seen, is described
as taking refuge in a floating island from the fury of Typhon or the sea^
* Plut. de hid. p. 374.
1 Plut. de Isid. p. 372, 3743 Simpl. in Aristot. de auscul. phys. lib. iv. p. 150.
CHAP-,V-
240
book it.
an(j ag afterwards expelling his enemy and as assuming that sovereignty which
the overwhelming monster had for a season usurped.
He is also said to
have been slain by the Titans, and to have been left by them for dead in the
water ; where, his mother Isis, at length finding him, by her divine power
restored him to life and immortality. 1
These legends both relate to the same event : they are merely told in a
somewhat different manner. The floating island shadowed out the Ark :
whence Typhon, by whom Horus is driven into it, is rightly declared to be
the personified ocean.
In a similar manner, the Titans were the whole race
of antediluvians : and they are generally represented, as being in arms against

the navicular hero-gods, but as being finally subdued by them and as being
then plunged into the watery depths of the great central abyis. Yet there is
an evident distinction made between the impious Titans and certain others of
a very different character who yet bore the same appellation : for Horus or
Apollo, Cronus or Saturn, Hercules, Prometheus, and Helius, as being
fundamentally one person, were all equally called Titan ; and we find a par
ticular family of Titans, which, with their parent Cronus at their head,
amounted precisely to eight persons.* These are doubtless the eight great
gods of Egypt : and the distinction is made, because the whole race of ante
diluvians comprehended the Noetic family as well as their irreclaimable con
temporaries. The supposed death of Horus then by the hands of the Titans
is closely allied to Typhon's inveterate pursuit of him. The Ark was esteem
ed a coffin ; and the inclosure of Noah within it, his death: hence arose the
various fables of the death and burial of the principal ship-god. Thus dead,
Isis finds Horus in the midst of the waters ; and forthwith bestows upon him
that new life, which Noah received when he quitted his floating coffin the
Ark.
2. The fabled persecution, which Osiris experiences from Typhon, is evi
dently the same, as the exactly parallel persecution, from which Horus is
* Diod. Bibl. lib. i. p. 22.
1 Orph. Hymn. xi. 1. xii. 2, 7. xxxiii. 3. Soph. (Edip. Colon, ver. 57- Stat. Thebaid.
lib. i. ver. 738. Sanch. apud Euseb. Praep. Evan. lib. i. c. 10. As Cronus is certainly the
lame as Sydyk or the just man Noah, his seven children the Titans are the same as the seven
Cabiri. They are the same also as the seven Hcliadae and the seven Rishit of Hindostan; the
same, it may be added, as various other parallel septeuaries.
241
xompelled to take refuge in the floating island Chemmis. Substitute only the
ark of Osiris for the island of Horus ; and the two stories are palpably iden
tified. The very curious legend of Osiris has been detailed at large by Plu
tarch. Its substance is, as follows.
Typhon, Ave are told, conspired against this hero-god of the Egyptians
with an intention to slay him and to usurp the whole of his dominions. For
this purpose he contrived an ark of extraordinary workmanship, and per
suaded him to enter into it. The credulous deity having assented, Typhon
shut him up, and cast him into the Nile which was mystically denominated
the.ocean. Thus inclosed in what was deemed his coffin, the winds and
waves conveyed him as one dead to Phenicia. Isis however rambled over all
the world in search of him : and, having at length found the lost object of
her tenderness, she succeeded in liberating him from his confinement and in
restoring him to life. * Here we perceive an ancient personage driven into
an ark by the violence of the sea, which for a time occupies the whole of his
dominions : and we learn, that, as his entrance into it was viewed in the
light of death, so his liberation from it was considered as a revival or as a
return from Hades.
The ark of Osiris, in which he was set afloat by his adversary Typhon,
was thought by the Egyptians to have been constructed in the form of a lunette
or a boat with two similar extremities.*
Its shape was in short that of the
modern life-boat, which resembles the lunar crescent floating on the water :
and it was adopted, because the Moon in her first or last quarter was made
the astronomical symbol of the Ark. Osiris accordingly was sometimes said
to have entered into this luniform ark, and at other times was fabled to have
entered into the Moon : and the Egyptians regularly commemorated by yearly
festivals each of these mysterious entrances.' But they both alluded to the
same event, the entrance of Noah into the Ark : for the Moon, into which
Osiris was thought to have entered, was no other than the wooden lunette,
the ark (as Plutarch fairly speaks out) shaped like the Moon, within which
Typhon inclosed him and then set him afloat on the water.
* Plut. de Isid. p. 356.
* Aajvax* ôsiJij. Plut. de Isid. p. 368.
3 Plut. de Isid. p. 366, 368.
Pag. Idol.
vOL. XI,
Sec Plate III. Fig. k

2 H
242
boos it.
The day, on which the Egyptian priesthood supposed Osiris to have been
shut up in the ark, was the seventeenth day of the month Athyr when the
Sun is in Scorpio ; at which time the overflowing of the Nile had ceased, and
the country had become dry. 1 Now, if we suppose Moses to have reckoned
by the civil year of the Jews which commenced from the autumnal equinox',
this will be the precise day of the precise month on which Noah entered into
the Ark.1 Or, if he reckoned by their ecclesiastical year which commenced
from the vernal equinox (a point, incapable perhaps of being now decided
with absolute certainty), we shall still have the memory of the precise day,
though in that case not of the precise month, accurately preserved in the le
gend of Osiris.' Itis not improbable, that the Egyptians themselves laboured
under some degree of doubt respecting the true mode of computation : for
they seem to have taken pains to provide against all liability to error by the
appointment of two annual festivals at the opposite seasons of the year,
spring and autumn; on one of which they commemorated the entrance of
Osiris into the Moon, and on the other his entrance into the ark. But these
two festivals, as I have just observed, related to the same event: for the
Moon of Osiris was the Moon only in a mystical sense ; literally and pro
perly, it was not the planet, but a lunifonn boat, in which he was feigned to
have floated down the Nile and to have crossed the sea to Phenicia. By this
expedient therefore of a double festival, they were sure to celebrate what
they called the inclosure of Osiris within his coffin on the very day of the
ery month of Noah's inclosure within the Ark.
' Plut. de hid. p. 355.
* In the second month, the seventeenth day of the month, the same day were all thefountains
of the great deep broken up, and the windows of heaven were openedIn the self-same day
entered Noah into the ark. Gen. vii. 11, 13.
' Abp. Usher supposes Moses to have reckoned by the civil year, which would make the
tradition of the Egyptian priesthood accurate even to a day. Usser. Annal. in A. P. J. 2365.
I think it however more probable, that he reckoned by the ecclesiastical year: because, in
that case, Noah would land from the Ark in the spring with the whole summer before him ;
while, in the other case, he would land in the autumn with the dismal prospect of an
approaching winter. Now it is not likely, that the good Providence of God would needlessly
expose him and his family to so serious an inconvenience. It may be added, that the olive
twig, plucked off by the dove, seems to have been a young and tender vernal shoot, not
tough branch of a whole year's growth.
THE ORIGIN OF PAOAN IDOLATRY.
243
That vessel being esteemed the coffin of Osiris, while he remained confined
within it, he was reputed to be dead, and was bewailed accordingly : but,
when he quitted it, he was thought to return to life, and the festival then as
sumed the appearance of the most extravagant mirth and exultation. So
likewise, during his inclosure in the ark, he was considered as lost; but,
when he left it, he was reckoned to be found again. In the commemorative
festival, this latter event was celebrated on the nineteenth day of the month,
or on the third day after his inclosure. The Egyptians then went down to the
sea by night, the priests bearing the sacred vehicle. This contained a golden
vessel in the form of a boat, doubtless that kind of boat which the Greeks
called amphiprymndis, a boat with similar extremities resembling the lunar
crescent. Into the boat they poured some of the river water : and then,
supposing Osiris to be found, they raised a shout of joy.1
The day of the egress of Osiris does not correspond with that of the egress
of Noah : but I think it not difficult to ascertain the reason, why the third
day after the inclosure was peculiarly selected. In the sacred Orgies the
whole history of the deluge was designed to be represented : but Noah re
mained in the Ark a year and ten days : it was necessary therefore in the
commemorative festival to compress this period of time.* The principle then,
upon which they went, I take to have been the following. As Noah was
shut up in the Ark a whole year with ten additional days, if we divide the
entire period into three parts and consider the unbroken year as the middle
part: in that case, he will have entered into the Ark at the close of one year;
he will have been confined in it during the whole of another year ; and ha
will have quitted it at the beginning of the third year. Now the ancients, as
it is well known, were wont mystically to call years days ; a practice, which
we may still behold in many of the prophecies of Holy Scripture. Under
such circumstances, they could not more aptly represent the diluvian history
in a compressed form, than by making Osiris enter into the ark on the seven
teenth day of Athyr and quit it on the third day following : for, in fact, had
the preservation of Noah been related in prophetic phraseology, he would
have been said to disappear on one day and to reappear on the subsequent
' Plut. de hid. p. 366.
* Gen. vii. 11, 13. viii. 14*
244
*ook iv.
third day.
THE OKIGIV OF PAGAN IDOLATRY.

In this respect, unless I much mistake, he, no less than Jonah,
is a most eminent type of the death, burial, and resurrection, of our blessed
Saviour. As Noah, according to the Jewish mode of computation, was shut
up in the Ark three years or three prophetic days; and as Jonah remained
three days in the belly of the cetus, that constant symbol of the Ark : so
did our Lord continue three days in the womb of the Earth, which the an
cients considered as a vast ship, and which was thence constantly represented
by the same hieroglyphics as the Ship of Noah. That is to say, each reap
peared on the third day after his disappearance : Christ and Jonah, on the
natural third day ; Noah, on the prophetic or mystical third day.
Since then, on the very day of the month in which Noah enters into the
Ark to avoid the fury of the deluge, Osiris is also compelled to enter into an
ark by Typhon, who in the mythology of Egypt (as Plutarch assures us) is
the same as the ocean ; Osiris must, by the strong evidence of circumstance,
be deemed one character with Noah. Such being the case, the luniform
ark of Osiris, which was sometimes mystically denominated the Moon, must
be the same as Noah's Ark : and the peculiar shape of a crescent must have
been adopted, and the name of the Moon applied to the machine so con
structed; because, in the union of Sabianism and Diluvianism, the boat-like
figure of the horned Moon was thought the best astronomical representative
of the Ship of the deluge.
Now the luniform ark of Osiris, in which he floated on the surface of the
waters, was certainly the sacred ship of Osiris; that ship, in which the
Egyptians placed the Sun, and in which they depicted their eight great gods
sailing together over the ocean. But the ship of Osiris, as we are plainly
taught by Plutarch, was that very ship, which the Greeks called Argo, and
which they feigned to be the vehicle of Jason and his adventurous companions
to Colchis : for he tells us, that the Argo was placed among the constellations
in honour of the ship of Osiris. 1 Hence it will follow, that the Argo must be
the Ark, and that the whole fable of the Argonautic expedition must be a
mere romance founded on the mystic voyage of Osiris, that is to say, on the
* To irAoiav, S xa*ou<nv 'E^vj; Ajyw, njf Otipfos vtuf tti ripy xarij<rrfio>ew.
de bid. p. 359,
Plut.

real voyage of Noah.
It will also follow, that Danaus who was reputed to
have sailed from Egypt to Argolis in the ship Argo, and that Jason who was
thought to have sailed in it to Colchis, must each be mere variations of the
character of Osiris or Noah. 1 And for such an opinion there is sufficient
evidence, distinct from that which arises from both of them being, like Osiris,
the reputed navigators of the Argo. Some mythologists rightly esteemed
Danaus the son of Theba ; which word, as it is well known, literally signifies
an ark : and from others we learn, that Jason, when a child, was inclosed
in an ark, like one dead, in order that he might escape the fury of Pelias.1
Now, since Jason and Osiris are equally said to be the captains of the Argo,
since each was inclosed in an ark, since each was persecuted by a relentless
enemy, since each was bewailed by females as one dead, and since each
upon quitting the ark was thought to be restored to life: we must inevitably
conclude, that these two famous Argonauts are fundamentally the very same
character, that the Argo is in both cases the Ark, and that the Egyptian deity
and his transcript the Greek hero are equally the god of the Ark. The ac
counts indeed, which we have of the Argo, shew plainly enough what primeval
ship it was designed to shadow out. Various persons were reputed to be
the builders of it : but, whether its architect was Danaus, or Jason, or
Argus, or Hercules, or Melicertes, or Minerva, or Typhon ; whether it
was framed in Egypt, or at Argos, or at Pagasaj. or in Phenicia, or on
mount Ossa ; still a constant notion prevailed, that it was the first ship which
was ever constructed, the first ship that divided the waves of the hitherto
impassable sea, that remarkable ship with which the science of navigation
commenced, the ship in short which on that very account was thought worthy
of being placed among the constellations. ' Nor was it only the first ship :
1 Schol. in Apollon. Argon, lib. i. vrr. 4.
* Tzetzcs mentions a writer, who makes Egyptus, the brother of Danaus, to be the son of
Thcba: consequently, Danaus was likewise her son. This Theba was the mythological wife
of Ogygcs, and was thought to have given her name to the Egyptian Thebes. But OgygeS
flourished at the time of the flood) and Theba is the very name, by which Moses designates
the Ark of Noah. Tssetz. Schol. in Lycoph. ver. 1206, 175. Tzetz. Chil. vii. hist. 96.
Pind. Pyth. iv. ver. 197.
' Compare Schol. in Apollon. Argon, lib. i. ver. 4. Ovid. Metam. lib. viii. ver. 302.
Tzetz. in Lycoph. ver. &B3. Ptol. Hephsest. Nov. Hist. lib. ii. p. 310. Athen. Deipnos. lib.
,V,
246
book iv.
THE ORIGIN OP PAGAN IDOLATET*
ft was ais0 the ship, in which Danaus the son of Theba, who was thought
to have flourished synchronically with the deluge of Ogyges, fled from the .
rage of Egyptus his brother; the ship, into which Osiris was equally driven
by the fury of his brother Typhon or the sea ; the ship, from which Jason,
who was similarly persecuted by Pelias, was believed to have sent out a dove. 1
When to these highly characteristic circumstances is added the manifest
identity of the Argo of the Egyptian Osiris and the Argha of the Indian
Eswara, and when we recollect that the Argha was supposed to have floated
on the surface of the deluge and afterwards to have been metamorphosed into
a dove ; it is almost impossible not to recognize in the Argo the Ship of Noah,
and in Osiris the patriarch himself. *
But it is not merely the diluvian history of Osiris, which points him out
to be Noah : his character likewise corresponds minutely with that of the
second great father of mankind, and at the same time no less minutely with
that of the first great father. Hence we may pronounce him to be not merely
Noah, but Noah viewed as a transmigratory reappearance of Adam.
We learn from Plutarch, that he was a husbandman, a legislator, and a
zealous advocate for the worship of the gods; that he was the first, who with
drew the Egyptians from the wildness of a savage life, who taught them how
to use the fruits of the earth, and who enacted laws for the preservation of
social order. ' Diodorus Siculus gives much the same account of him. He
tells us, that he did not confine himself merely to Egypt ; but that he travelled
over the whole world, was the universal civilizer of manners, and every
where appeared in the light of a general benefactor. He was in India,
Arabia, Ethiopia, Asia, Thrace, Greece, and Italy. Like the Hindoo god
Deo-Naush, with whom he is clearly to be identified, he not only passed
over all those regions, but penetrated to the very source of the Ister or Davii. p. 296. Orph. Argon, ver. 6669. Plut. de Isid. p. 356. Schol. in Apoll. Argon, lib. i.
ver. 238. Eratos. Catast. Afyw. Lucan. Fhars. lib. iii. ver. 193. Manil. Astron. lib. i. ver.
403. Apollon. Argon, lib. i. ver. 551. Schol. in Arat. Phaen. p. 46.
* Apoll. Bibl. lib. ii. c. 1. 4. Apollon. Argon, lib. ii. ver. 557.
* The reader will find the Argonautic expedition treated of at great length in my Dissert, on
the Cabiri. c. viii.
3 Plut. de Isid. p. 356.

nube.
247
He was particularly a skilful cultivator of the vine : and, wherever
the climate did not suit the growth of that tree, he taught men the method of
making a vinous liquor from barley. Though an Egyptian divinity, he was
not always reputed to be a native of Egypt.
The Indians asserted, that he
was born at Nusa in their country : and modern researches into the mythology
of Hindostan sufficiently demonstrate the accuracy of this statement of
Diodorus, by shewing that Deo-Naush, whence the Greeks borrowed their
Dionusus, is the same person as Osiris. The Arabians, on the other hand,
supposed him to be a native of Nusa in their country, and there to have first
planted the vine. He was reckoned to be the original founder of the Egyptian
Thebes, so famous for its hundred gates; and he bestowed upon it the name
of his mother. Diodorus adds indeed, that it was called Thebes only in after
ages : but this I apprehend to be a mistake. The allegorical parent of Osiris
was Theba or Argo ; who was likewise said to be the mother of the Argonaut
Danaus or Deo-Naush and the wife of the diluvian Ogyges, and who was
the prototype of Isis or Rhea or the great universal mother. It was from
this Theba, that both the Greek and the Egyptian cities derived their name
of ThebcE. Diodorus further assures us, that he was certamly the same as
the Greek Dionusus or Bacchus, that mythologists supposed him to have
been in every quarter of the habitable globe, and that both Greeks and In
dians equally believed him to be the original inventor of wine and the first
instructor of mankind in the art of cultivating vineyards.*
This universality of character is in itself sufficient to overturn the opinion
of those, who have imagined Osiris to be Moses or Joseph. 1 He, who was
alike claimed by every nation, who was thought to have visited all parts of
the earth, who was celebrated throughout the whole world as thefirst agri
culturist, thefirst inventor of wine, thefirst legislator, the first navigator of
a ship, thefirst great civilizer of mankind, can only be a person in whom the
whole habitable globe was equally interested. But such a character is solely
applicable to him, whom the Gentiles venerated as the great transmigrating
universal father or Adam reappearing in the person of Noah.
Him each
Diod. Bibl. lib. i. p. 13- 18. lib. iv. p. 210.

* I allude to Gale., Huet, and Sandford, men of great learning, but certainly much mis
taken in their views of the character of Osiri.
243
nation, in the usual spirit of local appropriation, claimed peculiarly to itself,

as its earliest king, its earliest instructor in the arts of civil life, its earliest
lawgiver and benefactor. He, in short, was that primitive husbandman,
that primitive cultivator of the vine ; who was known in every quarter of the
world as the mystic son of Nusa or Theba, who was at once the child of the
Earth and of the Ship jointly venerated under common symbols, who was
thought to have lived two successive lives, and who was believed to have
been driven into an ark on the seventeenth day of the second month by the
fury of the overwhelming ocean.
3. I have already had occasion to notice the mystic theocrasy of the old
mythologists, by which all their principal deities were ultimately resolved
into one person. In no part of heathen lore does this theocrasy appear in a
more singular light, than in the legend of Osiris and Typhon. Their cha
racters are clearly enough discriminated from each other : and, as Osiris is
evidently the transmigrating Noah, so Typhon is plainly and indeed avowedly
the ocean or the deluge. Yet, though described as open and irreconcileable
enemies, they are nevertheless (such was the flexible nature of ancient demonolatry) sometimes strangely intermingled with each other. Osiris, not
withstanding in his astronomical capacity he is said to be the Sun, and not
withstanding in his human capacity he is palpably the great father, is yet
declared to be the same as both the ocean and the river Nile. ' Here the
marine god of the deluge is confounded with the deluge itself : and Osiris is
identified with that very ocean and with that very river itself mystically
denominated the ocean,* over the waters of which he floated in his ark;
with that very ocean in short, of which his arch adversary Typhon was
deemed a personification.
Osiris thus invading the character of Typhon, Typhon similarly encroaches
on the character of Osiris.
He is positively declared to be the ocean or the
1 Offi^tv ilxcxyov. Plut. de Isid. p. 364. Tourov (Zefo<inyJ fivai rov Uei\ov. Suid.
Lex. Serapis was the same as Osiris. This deity being esteemed one with the Nile, we find
that the Nile bore the name of Sirit, by Isaiah expressed Sihor; which, as Selden justly re
marks, is the same word as Osirit or Itiris. Isaiah xxiii. 3. Scld. de diis Syr. synt. i. c. 4.
p. 737&
Diod. Bibl. lib.i. p. 12, 17.
249
deluge ; he is represented as a being most violent and unruly in his nature; and
he is said to have thrown the Universe into confusion, and to have filled both
sea and land with evils unutterable. 1 When to these particulars are added
the circumstances of his having forced Osiris into an ark and of his having
constrained Horustotake refuge in a floating island, we can scarcely doubt of
his being a personification of the flood. Yet this very demon was sometimes
viewed in the light of the great father or the principal helio-arkite divinity.
Plutarch tells us, that the Egyptians esteemed Typhon the same as the Sun.
He rejects indeed the opinion as palpably absurd, on account of the manifest
confusion which it involves : but he does not dissemble the existence of such
an opinion. * Typhon then is strangely blended with Osiris in his astronomi
cal capacity : and, what might thence be naturally expected, he is equally
blended with him in his human capacity. Thus we have a legend, that,
when Typhon was born, he broke violently through the side of his mo
ther.' Now his mother was Rhea, who was likewise the mother of Osiris.4
The birth therefore of Typhon is the same as the birth of Osiris. But
Rhea is the lunar ship of the deluge, which was esteemed the receptacle of
the hero-gods and the great mother from which they were all born. Conse
quently, the birth of Typhon, like that of Osiris, relates to the allegorical
birth of Noah from the door in the Ark's side, so famous in the Mysteries of
the ancients. This however is not the sole matter, to which it alludes.
Rhea was the Earth, no less than the Ark : and, as Typhon, when viewed
as the god of the deluge, is born from the side of the Ark ; so, when viewed
as the deluge itself, he bursts violently from the womb of the Earth or the
great central abyss. Hence he is sometimes literally declared to have been
the son of the Earth. 5 Rhea was deemed the mother of Isis, as well as of
Osiris and Typhon : but, as all the old mythological writers agree, they were
fundamentally the same character; for they were each the house or receptacle
of the hero-gods.
'
*
3
4
5
Accordingly this general mother, considered in a different
Plut. de Isid. p. 363, 371, 36l.

T<uv Ss Tvifuiva, iroiouvruiY toy 'HAiov wh a.xww afyoy. Plut. de Isid. p. 372.
Plut. de Isid. p. 355.
Diod. Bibl. lib. i. p. 13.
Auton. Liber. Metam. c. xxviii. Apoll. Bibl. lib. i. c. 6. 3.
Pag. Idol.
vol. ii.
2 1
CHAr. ,v-
230
THE OllIGIH OF PAGAN IDOLATRY.
point of view, became the consort of the chief arkite deity.
Thus Isis was
generally thought to be the wife of Osiris, though as Rhea she was his pa
rent : and yet, in consequence of the mystic theocrasy by which Osiris and
Typhon were blended together, a notion also prevailed, that she was the
consort of Typhon and only the adulterous paramour of Osiris. 1
4. The same curious theocrasy blended Typhon with others of the heliodiluvian gods ; all of whom, as we have seen above, are mutually declared to
be one character both with each other and with Osiris.
Accordingly we are told, that Typhon was the same as Priapus, who was
himself the same as Protogonus and Phanes and the Sun ; who were again the
same as Dionusus or Bacchus ; who was lastly the same as Osiris.1 Now
Priapus was no other than Baal-Peor the phallic god of the Moabites, both
as we learn from Jerome and as the very name itself seems to import ; for
Priapus is probably a mere corruption of Pwr-Apis. '
Baal-Peor then, or
the lord of opening, under which title Noah was adored, as the god presiding
over generation or the opening of the great arkite mother : this Baal-Peor
was the same as Typhon ; which again unites him with Osiris. His rites
were most detestable : but the origin of that vile worship, which called down
the divine vengeance on the apostate Israelites, is indifferently ascribed to
Typhon, Osiris, and Dionusus ; whence their characters plainly amalgamate
with each other.4
The Mysteries of Typhon or Baal-Peor, like all the phallic Orgies of anti
quity, originated from the idea, that the transmigrating Noah and the mun
dane Ark were the two great parents of the Universe. Philo Judeus, accord
ingly, in a very curious passage, immediately refers the Mysteries of BaalPeor to the deluge. - He tells us, that in the celebration of them all his vota
ries opened their mouths to receive the water that was poured into them from
without ; and that by this figurative action they represented the plunging of
* Jul. Firm, de error, prof. rel. p. 4.
* Diod. Bibl. lib. iv. p. 214. lib. i. p. 13, 15, 22. Orph. Hymn. y. 1, 8, 9- xxix. 1, 2.
3 Hicron. Comment, in Hos. c. ix. 1 think Bp. Horsley somewhat too hasty in calling that
a random guess of St. Jerome. When we find the principal gods of the Gentiles uniformly
declared to be one character, and when we find both their worship and history to be fundamen
tally the very same ; their identity is surely something more than a random guess.
* Diod. Bibl. lib. iv. p. 214.

Nous the governor beneath the waters of the flood and the impelling of him
to the lowest abyss of Chaos. 1 That Philo here refers the Mysteries of
Baal-Peor to the deluge, is, I think, sufficiently plain : but I do not say,
that he did it consciously. He himself probably might not fully understand
the term which he was using ; but might imagine, that Nous meant nothing
more than Mind or Intelligence, and that the whole related to some mystical
act of mental abstraction and meditation. Nous does indeed denote Mind ;
but, like the Sanscrit word Menu, it only acquired that signification, because
the man Nous or Nus or Nuh or Noah was, in the material system, deemed
the Mind or Intellectual Soul of the World. The Nous in question however
was to be plunged into a deluge of water, which demonstrates his real cha
racter : and he is evidently the same as the Orphic or Platonic Nous, the
parent of the royal triad of younger Noes ; whose history the Greeks have
well nigh ruined, by too much refining on the sense, which the word acquired
in their language in consequence of the great father being esteemed the Soul
or animating principle of the Universe. The rites of the Typhonian BaalPeor were the same as those of Osiris in yet another respect : they were not
only highly impure, but they were also of a funereal nature ; whence the
Psalmist rightly connects them with what he calls sacrifices of the dead.*
The expression is exactly similar to that, which the Orphic poet employs in
speaking of the doleful infernal rites of Osiris. ' The Mysteries of BaalPeor, Adonis, and the Egyptian divinity, were all the same : the dead in
each instance, if used plurally as it is by the Psalmist, mean the Noetic
family ; who were regarded as dead while inclosed within their coffin the
Ark, and who were thought to return to life when they quitted it
As for Priapus, who (as we have seen) was identified with Typhon, how
ever he may by later mythologists have been degraded into a mere scarecrow,
he was a god of high dignity and antiquity. He is celebrated by the Orphic
1 OuVo< Ss teXbtm; rats aviegoi; rai; BesXycy<uf rtXsa-SsvTts, xa<i ra rou vwfiaros rrCfixra,
xzvTz evquvoLvrts #(0; njv riuv sfcwfev cxi^soi^syuiv psupxT<vv titfoJoîjv (*jfuptwnu yap BA>
fiyuig avwTSui o-rou.es Ssgju.arof), xarcxXutroLv toy rfysu.ayx Nouv, xou ncrfiaav f fiviov tv%p.r*r.
Phil. Jud. apud Seld. de diis Syr. synt. i. c. 5. p. 85. I have for obvious reasons given only
the partial sense of this passage.
..* Psalm cvi. 28.
3 Qgyvovs r Aiyvifriwv, xat Qrijitos legx yvtXa.. Orph. Argon, ver. 32.
252
uook iv. poet, as being no other than Phanes, or Dionusus, or the first-born male
who was produced out of the tempest-tossed egg or ovicular arkite machine.1
Phurnutus jusUy supposes him to be the same as Pan; and observes, that
they were both accounted primeval demon-gods.1
But Pan was thought by
the Mendesians to be one of the eight great deities, and indeed the oldest
or head of them all : and he was reckoned the same as Osiris, or Serapis,
or Dionusus, or Pluto, or Zeus, or Ammon.5 Thus are we again brought
back to the point whence we set out, the mystic theocrasical identity of
Osiris and Typhon.
5. Their characters being blended together, we shall not be surprized to
find, that they bore the same appellation also ; and that appellation may
likewise be plainly traced in the worship of Baal-Peor.
The Egyptians, we are told, designated Typhon by the name of Seth,
and Osiris by that of Soth or Sothi.* These are radically but one word, con
taining the same fundamental though mutable consonants, and differing from
each other only in the unessential vowel. Now there is reason to believe,
that Seth or Soth was also a title of Baal-Peor. The place, where the Is
raelites were encamped when the Moabitish women seduced them into the
nefarious Orgies of that obscene deity, was called Sittim, or (as Jerome
writes the word) Settim. He places it hard by mount Peor; which was
one of those high places or local Ararats of the Prothyrean Baal, to which
Balak conducted Balaam for the purpose of cursing Israel.5
Sittim is the
plural of Seth, as Baalim is the plural of Baal: and these Sittim or Baalim
were the arkite gods, of whom Noah, under the singular name Seth, Sit,
Sid, or Soth, was the principal. To them the region of Sittim, where the
rites of Baal-Peor prevailed, seems to have been dedicated : and Balaam
himself calls the Moabites, in the generally received phraseology of Pagan
ism, the children of Seth.6 By this Seth he meant Typhon or Baal-Peor, to
1 Orph. Hymn. v.
1 Phurn. de nat. deor. c. xxvii.
* Herod. Hist. lib. ii. c.4,6, 145. Diod. Bibl. lib. i. p. 22.
* Tov Tufuivx 2ij8 an oi Aiyutfriot xaXoueri. Plut. de Isid. p. 367- O! ftev Oo-ifiV, oi It Xcfamv, ci If 2>0i AiyutfTt<rri. Ibid. p. 375. Epiphanius says the same; and adds, that the
sacred ass of Typhon was likewise called Seth. Epiph. adv. haer. lib. iii. p. 1093.
5 Numb. xxv. 1. xxii. 41. xxiii. 28.
* Numb. xxiv. 17.
25S
-whose lascivious Orgies they were so notoriously addicted : and the children
of Setk were the votaries of that deity, who truly claimed their descent
from him as the great universal father both of gods and men. The place of
Israel's seduction was sometimes denominated compoundedly Abel-Sittim.1
It doubtless received the name from the mournful Orgies of Baal-Peor, which
were there celebrated. Abel-Sittim denotes the mourning of the Sittim:
and this mourning was the same, as that of the Syrian women who bewailed
the mystic death of Adonis or Thammuz, and as that of the Egyptians who
similarly lamented the death of Osiris. It was here accordingly, that the
Israelites, while they joined themselves to Baal-Peor, partook of those sa
crifices of the dead, which are mentioned by the Psalmist as forming an
eminent part of his worship.
6. But the genuine and most usual character of Typhon is that of a tre
mendous monster, who waged war against Osiris and the hero-gods, and
who involved the whole world in anarchy and confusion.
What we are literally to understand by this mythological demon is unre
servedly told us by Plutarch. He assures us, as we have already seen, that
Typhon is the ocean : and there is abundance of circumstantial evidence to
prove, that by this ocean was meant the deluge. Typhon was thought to be
the son of the Earth, because the waters of the flood issued from the great
central abyss : and, in a hymn ascribed to Homer, he is said to have been
produced from the vapours which Juno caused to exhale from the earth.
His bulk was terrific: his heads were many in number : he had wings on
his shoulders : and his thighs terminated in the volumes of two enormous
serpents. He not only inclosed Osiris within an ark, drove Horus into the
floating island Chemmis, and (under the name of Python) constrained Latona to take refuge in the floating island Delos where she became the parent
of Apollo and Diana : but he likewise compelled all the arkite divinities to
flee into Egypt, where they assumed the forms of the various sacred animals
of that country. At length, Jupiter overwhelmed him, according to some,
with mount Etna ; submerged him, according to others, in the country of
the Arimi ; confined him, according to others again, in a cavern of Cilicia ;
1 Numb, xxxiii. 49.
254
iiook iv.
or plunged him thunderstruck, according to others, beneath the lake Serbonis.1

All this wild superstructure of romantic incident, which mythologists have
erected on the allegorical character of Typhon, will require little explana
tion, if we steadily keep in mind that that poetical monster is avowedly the
diluvian ocean. For a time he prevails, and constrains the hero-gods to save
themselves by a precipitate flight : but he is finally subdued himself, and
plunged beneath that earth from the womb of which he originally issued.
Accordingly, the scene of his overthrow is usually connected with some di
luvian legend, in whatever different countries it might be laid by different
nations : for this was the mere vanity of local appropriation, similar to that
by which they severally localized the history of the deluge and the appulse
of the Ark. Thus, he is over* helmed with Etna: but some imagined, that
the ark of Deucalion rested upon that mountain, lie is slain, under the
name of Python, in the skirts of Parnassus : but the Greek mythologists
tell us, that this was the mountain on which Deucalion's ark rested. He
is submerged in the land of the Arimi, w hom Stiabo pronounces to be the
Syrians : but the ark of Deucalion was also thought to have grounded on a
mountain of
dition of his
elsewhere.
immediately
Syria ; and in that country, as wc learn from Lucian, the tra

voyage was preserved with yet greater minuteness of detail than
He is plunged in the lake Serbonis : but his Egyptian history
connects him with the deluge, as sufficiently appears from the
part which he acts against Osiris and Horus.

Typhon in short, when his legend is not obscured by that mystic theocrasy
which blended him with Osiris, is the ocean at the time of the flood, as the
Egyptian priests themselves acknowledged : and it is curious to observe, how
accurately the language of Moses coincides with the hieroglyphical descrip
tion of Apollodorus. Moses tells us, that the waters of the deluge prevailed
* He. Theog. ver. 820868.
Apoll. Bibl. lib. i. c. 6. 3. Anton. Liber. Metam. c.
xxviii. Ovid. Metam. lib. v. ver. 321331, 346355. llyg. Fab. 197- Hyg. Poet. Astron.
lib. ii. c. 30. iEschyl. Prom. Vinct. ver. 351355. Homer. Iliad, lib. ii. ver. 783. Strab.
Geog. lib. xvi. p. 784. Herod, lib. ii. c. 144. lib. iii. c. 5. Herodotus indeed says, that Ty
phon lay hid in the lake Serbonis ; an expression, which seems rather to relate to him in hi*
character of the arkitc deity: but Stephanus says, that he was thunderstruck there.
255
exceedingly upon the earth, that all the high hills under the whole heaven
were covered, and that the waters rose fifteen cubits above the tops of the
loftiest mountains.1 Apollodorus says, that the arms of Typhon reached
from the utmost boundaries of the west to the extremity of the east, that in
height he surpassed the summits of the tallest hills, and that his head seemed
to strike the stars.1 Nor is the very word Typhon even yet obsolete in the
sense which the Egyptians ascribed to it: the Arabs still express the general
deluge by the name al Tufan?
7. Yet, while the character of Typhon relates thus chiefly to the flood, I
am inclined to suspect, that even its mystic intercommunion with that of
Osiris does not exhibit the full extent to which it has been carried.
Typhon has evidently a strong affinity to the Ahriman of Persia and the
destroying Siva of Iiindostan. From the former therefore, as he appears in
the Zend-Avesta, I am led to conjecture, that Typhon was not simply the
deluge, but the deluge viewed as the work of the evil principle : and, from
a remarkable part of the legend of Siva, I am further induced to think,
agreeably to the prevalent doctrine of a succession
Typhon, viewed as the brother and murderer of
ultimate reference to the primeval fratricide Cain.
that fratricide ; when he is manifested upon earth,
of similar worlds, that in

Osiris, we may trace an
Siva at least is certainly
as one of the three sons
of Adima or the first Menu, and as the murderer of his brother Dacsha at
a memorable sacrifice : hence, when we consider the palpable identity of the
Hindoo and Egyptian superstitions, and when we find Typhon similarly de
scribed as the murderer of his brother Osiris; the presumption is, that a si
milar ultimate reference was intended, though the death of Osiris chiefly re-,
lated to the entrance of the great father into the Ark. Various other pa
rallel stories may be mentioned, all of which ought, I think, to be ascribed
to the same origin. Thus there was a notion, that one of the Corybantes
or Cabin was slain by his two brothers : thus Iasion is said to have fallen
by the hand of his brother Dardanus: and thus the life of Danaus is feigned
' Gen. vii. 1720.
* Anc. Univ. Hist. vol. i. p. 200. note E.
* Apollod. Bibl. lib. i. c. 6. 3.
C,,AP- tT.
256
j:ook iy.
to have been sought by his brother Egyptus.1
In each of these instances
we have but a repetition of the murder of Osiris by Typhon or of Dacsha by

Siva, as is plain by every one of the agents being immediately connected
with the deluge : for the Cabiri were eminently diluvian gods, Dardanus es
caped in a ship at the time of a flood, and Danaus was the navigator of the
Argo or Argha no less than Osiris or Siva. The Hindoo legend, in which
the double manifestation of Siva as a member both of the family of the first
and of the seventh Menu is distinctly set forth, will best serve as an expla
nation of those other fables, which have so clearly sprung from the same
source.
t
II. The ark, within which Typhon inclosed Osiris, was thought to have
drifted on shore in Phenicia : and the Egyptians, as we are informed by Lucian, had a custom of yearly commemorating this supposed event by com
mitting to the winds and waves a papyrine vessel ; which in form represented
the head of the deity, and which was feigned to be wafted in seven days to
Byblos by a supernatural impulse.1 This ceremony Procopius immediately
connects with the Mysteries of Adonis or Thammuz. He tells us, that, the
same day on which the Byblians began to weep for Adonis, the Alexan
drians inclosed a sealed letter in an earthen vessel ; the purport of which
was, that the god was found again. Then, after the due performance of
certain mystic rites, they cast it into the sea. It was reported to drift spon
taneously to Byblos : and its arrival put an end to the lamentations for the
lost Adonis, and changed them into the most frantic expressions of jov on
account of his reinvention.' Nor was Adonis only supposed to have been
lost, and then recovered : he was also annually bewailed with funereal rites,
as a person that had been slain ; and he was afterwards welcomed with loud
acclamations, on his fictitious return to life.*
Now the rites, celebrated in honour of Osiris, were of an exactly similar
1 Jul. Firm, de error, prof. rel. p. 23. Serv. in tEneid. lib. iii. ver. l63 170.
Apoll. Argon, lib. i. ver. 4. Clem. Alex. Cohort, p. 12.
* Luc. de dea Syra. 7. See plate I. Fig. 12.
3 Procop. in Esai. c. xviii. apud Selden.
* Luc. de dea Syra. 6. Phurn. de nat. dcor. c. xxviii.
Schol. in
857
nature : the god was for a time bewailed, as one lost or murdered ; after
wards he was thought to be found or to be reanimated, and the wild sorrow
of his votaries was exchanged for yet wilder joy.1
Thus it appears then, that the Mysteries of the two deities were in aH
points substantially the same : and it further appears, that they were avowedly
connected with each other, both by the imaginary drifting of the ark of Osiris
to the Phenician coast, and by the annual voyage of the papyrine or earthen
vessel to Byblos. Hence we maybe sure, that, as Osiris and Adonis are equally
the Sun, so they are equally one character likewise in their human capacity.
Accordingly Lucian tells us, that some of the Byblians maintained, that Osiris
was buried in their country, and that their Orgies were instituted not in honour
of Adonis but of the Egyptian divinity.*
Their opinion was so far right,
that Osiris was undoubtedly the hero of their Mysteries : yet it was nuga
tory to assert, that Adonis was therefore not the hero of them. Adonis and
Osiris were in fact one person : or rather Adonis and Osiris were but dif
ferent names of one deity, venerated alike in Egypt and Phenicia with rites
first gloomily funereal and afterwards tumultuously joyful.
Such being the case, as the Mysteries of Osiris were the same as those
of Seth or Typhon or Baal-Peor, the Mysteries of Adonis must also be
identified with the Orgies of that god. The sacrifices therefore of the dead,
which the Israelites partook of in the worship of Baal-Peor, must have been
those that were offered up to him during the time of his supposed death or
disappearance. To this species of idolatry, which prevailed alike in Egypt
and Phenicia, they continued to be pertinaciously attached long after the
days of Moses : for Ezekiel speaks of women weeping for Thammu*, as one
of the many abominations of his degenerate countrymen.' The mournful
rites of Adonis were well known likewise at Argos, so famous for its many
memorials of the deluge; in which place, as elsewhere, his loss was statedly
bewailed by the females.4 He was equally venerated in the island of Cy
prus, where, if I mistake not, he was known by his scriptural name of
Jul. Firm. Je error, prof. rel. p. 4, 5, 6. Ovid. Metara. lib. ix. ver. 6"92. lib. x. vcr.
725727.
* Luc. de dea Syra. 7.
3 Esek. viii. 14.
4 Paus. Corinth, p. 121.
Pag. Idol,
vol. ii.
2 K
258
book iv.
THE ORIGIN OF PAGAN IDOLATItr.
Thammuz : for the sacred peculium of the temple, which was dedicated in
that country to his paramour Venus, was denominated Tamaseum.1
1. Adonis being the same as Osiris, and his Mysteries perfectly corre
sponding with those of the Egyptian deity, we shall find that their respective
legends have a considerable degree of resemblance to each other.
Adonis was thought to have been the lover of Venus, and to have been
slain by a wild boar or (according to Nonnus) by Mars in the shape of a
boar. Typhon was said to have been in pursuit of a boar at the time of the
full Moon, when he found and rent asunder the wooden ark which contained
the body of Osiris.1 When Adonis was slain by the boar, he at the same
time disappeared : in consequence of which he was sought for by Venus in
various countries, and at length, found in Argos a city of Cyprus.5 In a sLmilar manner, the lost Osiris was sought for by Isis, and his mangled body
at last discovered by her in Phenicia. Venus here performs the part of
Isis: and mythologists accordingly inform us, that they were one and
the same goddess. Each was equally the receptacle of the hero-gods,
or the ship of the deluge.
Hence Adonis is worshipped with the sea
born Venus, just as Osiris is with the navicular Isis : and, as the Moon
was the astronomical symbol of the Ark, we find them peculiarly ve
nerated on the summit of Lebanon, which was one of the many tran
scripts of the true lunar mountain Ararat or Luban.4
The most prominent and definite circumstance however in the history
of Osiris is certainly his inclosure in an ark : this, accordingly, could not
be omitted in the legend of Adonis. But here he sustains the additional
character of the infant Horus. Venus, we are told, being struck with his
beauty while he was yet a child, concealed him from the other gods in an ark,
which she committed to the care of Proserpine.
That goddess became
equally enamoured, and refused to restore him. The matter being referred
to Jupiter, he decreed, that Adonis should spend four months with him,
1 Ovid. Mctam. lib. x. ver. 644.

* Macrob. Saturu. lib. i. c. 21. Nonni Dionys. lib. xli. Plut. de Isid. p. 354.
1 Ptol. Iicph. Nov. Hist. lib. vii. p. 336.
4 Macrob. 8aturn. lib. c. 21*

four with Proserpine, and four with Venus.1
This inclosure in the ark, as CHAP. iv.
as appears from the parallel fable of Osiris, was really the time of his alle
gorical death : and, as the arkite divinity under whatever name was gener
ally feigned to have experienced such a death, we usually find him reputed
to have also visiUed the infernal regions and to have returned in safety from
them. In all these cases the inclosure within the Ark was meant, which it
self was therefore consistently esteemed a coffin. Noah remained shut up
somewhat more than a year : hence Adonis, as we learn from Theocritus,
was supposed to have continued a year in Hades before he emerged to light
and liberty.*
2. Hesiod represents Adonis as being the son of Phenix and Alphesibea :
but the more common opinion is, that he was born from the incestuous in
tercourse of Cinyras with his own daughter Myrrha. Cinyras was said to
be a king of Assyria or Babylonia, who in a state of intoxication had inter
course with his daughter. The consequence of it was the birth of Adonis.
But, according to Antoninus Liberalis, this Cinyras, whom he calls Theias
or Thoth, was the son of Belus ; and he tells us, that Myrrha was born in
mount Lebanon.'
The whole legend curiously connects itself both with the preceding his
tory of Adonis, and with other parts of ancient mythology which I have al
ready had occasion to notice. Alphesibea and Myrrha are both, I believe,
equally the Ark or the great mother : and, as the name of the latter denotes
the Moon of the water; so that of the former, which is a compound of
two synonymous words, Phenician and Greek, the one apparently added to
explain the other, signifies the heifer, an animal, which, from its being a sym
bol of the Ark, the Syrians were wont also to call ThebaS She was the
same as the horned Astarte or bovine Venus of the Phenicians : whence
arose the notion of her being peculiarly born on the summit of Le' A poll. Bib), lib. iiL c. 13. 4.
* Theoc. Idyll, xv. ver. 101103.
3 Hesiod. apud Apoll. Bibl. lib. iii. c. 13. 4. Fulgent. Mythol. lib. iii. c. 8. Hyg. Fab.
l64, 242. Anton. Liber. Metam. c. xxxiii.
* Murrha seems to be Mou-Rha. The word Rha or Ira equally signifies the. Moon in the
Chaldee and the old Cclto-Scytbic : and such an etymology perfectly accords with her supposed
birth on Lebanon or the, mountain of the Moon. Alphaibia is compounded of AUph and Bous.
THE OBIGIN OF PAGAN IDOLATRY.

k4x ir.
banon, which was their local mountain of the Moon, and in which VenusArchitis the paramour of Adonis was specially venerated.1
Her consort or
lover Phenix bears a name common to all the Phenicians, but which
they themselves seem to have assumed from a title of the principal arkite
divinity.
Phanac or Phenix was an appellation of Osiris, Adonis, or
Bacchus : for Adonis was the very same character as his mythological father ;
and the whole fable of his incestuous birth originated from the complex re
lationship of father and son, which the intoxicated Noah was thought to
bear to the Ark.* But the legend carries us also into Assyria or Babylonia,
and that in a manner not a little curious : for the reputed father of Adonis
is said to have been the son of the Assyrian Belus ; and a notion prevailed,
that his fabulous mother was changed into a tree, in which condition she
brought him into the world. Now it is a remarkable circumstance, that
Semiramis, who by many was esteemed the same as Rhea, Venus, Atargatis, or the Syrian goddess, was variously feigned to have been metamor
phosed into a tree and a dove. The tree alluded to was an excavated tree
or canoe, such as was used in the Mysteries of Cybele : and the birth of
Adonis from it, like the revival of Attis from the hollowed trunk, means only
the birth of Noah from the Ark. In the Hindoo mythology, Parvati, during
the period of the deluge, similarly assumes the forms of a dove and of the
ship Argha which answers to the excavated tree.
III. Throughout Phrygia, Osiris or Adonis was worshipped under the
name of Attis or Aiys: and he was there supposed to be the favourite of
Cybele ; who, like Venus or Isis, was the great universal mother. The rites
of Attis were of the same alternately melancholy and joyful description as
those of Adonis and Osiris : and he was supposed to have been bewailed
by Cybele, just as his two kindred deities were by Venus and Isis.' Ac
cording to Diodorus, Attis was slain by Meon or Menes the father of Cy-.
bele: upon which the goddess wandered over the whole world, with dishe
velled hair like one insane, on account of the murder of her lover.4 This
' Macrob. Saturn, lib. i. c. 21.
1 Auson. Epig. xxx.
* Macrob. Saturn, lib. i.e. 21. Jul. Firm, de error, prof. rcl. p. 20.
4 Drod. Bibl. lib. iii. p. 191, 192.
THB ORIGIN OF PAGAN IDOLATHT.

legend is plainly a mere variation of the fables of Osiris and Adonis : for
Menes is the primeval Menes or Menu or Menwyd of Egypt and Hindostan and Britain ; and the imagined shepherd Attis was astronomically the
Sun in his character of the classical Apollo-Nomius and the Indian pastoral
Crishna, while in his human character (as we are specially informed by Macrohius and Clemens) he was the very same person with Bacchus and Ado
nis.' Accordingly, the frantic Bacchantes were wont to exclaim, in honour
of their god, Evoe, Sabot, Hues, Attes, Attes, Hues.*
Attis being the great arkite father, Catullus justly describes hiin as sailing
over the ocean in a swift ship before he took up his abode in Phrygian
This voyage was the same as the imagined voyage of Cronus to Italy, and
of Osiris to Phenicia: they were all the voyage of Noah. The propriety
of such an opinion will appear from the manner, in which this navigation of
Attis was introduced into the rites of Cybele. Julius Firmicus tells us, that
at the annual celebration of the Phrygian Mysteries a pine-tree was cut down,
and the image of a young man bound fast in the middle of it.
These Mys
teries, he says, were sacred to the mother of the gods : and he adds, that in
the Orgies of I sis a similar ceremony was observed; for. the trunk of a
pine-tree was dexterously excavated like a canoe, and an image of Osiris
made from the cuttings of the wood was inclosed within it as a dead body is
within a coffin.4 Thus it is evident, that the Cybele of Phrygia is the Isis
of Egypt ; and the Attis of Phrygia, the Osiris of Egypt. Consequently,
the inclosure of Attis in the boat made out of the pine-tree must have the
same mythological allusion, as the inclosure of Osiris within the ark or the
ship Argo : and the imaginary death, and burial, and revival, of Attis must
be the imaginary death, and burial, and revival, of Osiris.
The son of the Phrygian Attis, whom I believe to be the very same an
cient personage as the god Attis or Menes, was feigned to have led a colony
of Lydians and Pelasgi into Tyrrhenia. They seated themselves on the banks
of the lake Cotyle, which had a floating island like that named Chemmis in
* Macrob. Saturn, lib. i. c. 21. Clem. Alex. Cohort, p. 12.
1 Euoi, 2a/3o, 'Tijt, Am)(, Arrijs, 'Tiff.
3 Catull. Eleg. 60.
* Jul. Firm, de error, prof. rcl. p. 53, 54.
CHAP, **

the sacred Egyptian lake near Buto. Sometimes however Hercules was
thought to have been their captain, who sailed over the sea in a golden cup ;
and sometimes, Telephus, who when an infant was exposed with his mother in
an ark. The meaning of the legend is sufficiently plain. Hercules, Attis,
and the ark-exposed Telephus, are all one person : and, under the supposed
guidance of the ancient deity who was venerated by these different appellations,
the new colony carried with them into Italy their paternal diluvian rites of
Attis or Adonis or Osiris, of the consecrated lake, and of the symbolical
floating island. 1
I V. The identity of Attis and Adonis will be shewn in a yet stronger light,
if we once more return into Phenicia. We there find a deity, worshipped by
the- Greeks and Romans under the name of Asclepius or Esculapius, respect
ing whom a story is told, which blends together the fables of those two gods,
and thus, while it proves them to be mutually the same, proves also that
they are each the same as Esculapius.
According to Sanchoniatho, Sydyk or the just man, who is clearly the
patriarch Noah, was the father of the seven Cabiri, who were the builders
of the first ship or the ship Argo : and to them an eighth brother was added,
thence denominated Esmuni, but properly called Asclepius. Respecting
him >Damascius relates, that, although worshipped by the Greeks, he was
really neither Greek nor Egyptian, but a Phenician god peculiarly adored at
Berytus or the city of the Baris, where the Cabiri had consecrated the relics
of the ocean or the deluge : that he was a youth ot such beauty as to engage
the affections of the goddess Astronoe, the mother of the gods : and that,
finding himself perpetually followed by her while engaged in the chase, he at
length, to avoid her importunities, castrated himself with a hatchet. *
Every thing in this legend pombines to shew, that Asclepius is the same
as the emasculated or hermaphroditic Attis and Adonis, and that Astronoe or
Astoreth is the same as Venus and Cybele. Hence it will follow, that he is
a diluvian god : and the whole of his mythological history will confirm the
opinion.
1 Dionys. Halic. Ant. Rom. lib. i. c. 15, 19. Plin. Nat. Hist. lib. iii. c. 12. Hyg. Fab.
274. Tzctz. in Lycopli. ver. 1237, 1242, 1 351.
1 Euscb. Prsep. Evan. lib. i. c. 10. Damas. vit. Isid. apud Phot. Bibl. p. 1073.
263
He was the great healer and restorer of the human race : and, in his
astronomical character of the Sun, he was worshipped in conjunction with
Salus or the Moon ; for the lunar boat was a symbol of that Ark, which af
forded health or safety to the Noetic family. 1 He was curiously connected
both with the dove and the raven, which are introduced so conspicuously into
the Mosaical account of the flood.1 He was thought to have returned from
the infernal regions, and to have possessed the power of bringing back others
from the same place : that is to say, he was supposed, like Osiris and Ado-r
nis, to have died and to have revived.' And he was one of the navigators of
the ship Argo ; which was also the ship or Baris of Osiris, and which is the
same as the Argha that safely conveyed the Indian Siva over the waters of
the deluge. * In reference to this part of his character, his temple at Rome
was built in an island of the Tiber; and the island itself, which seems to have
been commensurate with the temple in point of size, was curiously fashioned
with a breast-work of marble into the form of a ship, the higher part of it
imitating the stern, and the lower part the prow.5 The shape, which this
god peculiarly delighted to assume, was that of a serpent: but the serpent
was one of the chief emblems of the great father in every quarter of the globe.
Thus Macrobius tells us, that a serpent was subjoined to the statues of Escu-r
lapius and Salus, considered as the Sua and Moon.6 Of these the Orphic
poet invokes the former by the name of the. Saviour ; and celebrates the latr
ter, as the universal queen and the great mother of all.?
V. We are assured, by Clemens Alexandrinus, that Attis was the same as
Bacchus or Dionusus ; and by Macrobius, that Attis, Osiris, Adonis, and
Bacchus, were all one deity. 8
Diodorus likewise concurs in asserting the
* Macrpb. Saturn, lib. i. c. 20.

* Paus. Corinth, p. 133. Arcad. p. 496. Lactan. Instit. lib. i. c. 10. Apollod. Bibl. lib.
iii. c. 10k
3 Hyg. Fab. 251. Diod. Bibl. lib. iv. p. 273. Apollod. Bibl. lib. iii. C- 10. \ 3.
4 Hyg. Fab. 14.
5 Ljv. Hist. Epit. lib. xi. Ovid. Metara. lib. xv. ver. 739- Valer. Maxim, lib. i. c. 8.
Pltn. Nat. Hist. lib. xxix. c. i. Dion. Halic. in exeerpt. a Vales. .
7 Orpb. Hymn. lxvi. lxvii.
* Clem. Cohort, p. 12. Macrob. Saturn, lib. i.'c. 21, 18..
CHAP. it.
26"4
THE ORIGIN OF PAGAN IDOLATRY.v
identity of the classical Bacchus and the Egyptian Osiris.' Accordingly, if

we examine the fabulous history of Bacchus, we shall plainly see, that the old
mythologists were not mistaken in entertaining such opinions respecting him.
1. The same enemies, that assailed the Egyptian deity, were thought also
to have turned their fury against Bacchus. He was attacked by the Titans,
who obtained him through a stratagem from his guardians the Curetes or
Cabiri ; was slain by them ; and was divided into seven pieces. Afterwards
his mangled carcase, like that of the elder Corybas, was buried in the arkite
mountain Parnassus : but at length his members were carefully collected by
Rhea, and joined together again. * Nonnus says, that this happened, not in
the vicinity of mount Parnassus, but in the region of Bactriana near the
Caspian sea, or in that very tract of country where the Hindoos place the
garden of Eden and suppose the Ark to have grounded : while J ulius Firmicus lays the scene of the tragedy in Crete, and represents Juno as being the
instigator of the Titans.*
2. Such varying tales are built upon mere local appropriations, similar to
that by which the Egyptians placed the sufferings of Osiris in their own
country : and they all equally relate to the events of the deluge. The death
and dilaceration and burial of the ship-god, in whatever region they were
fabled to have occurred, were the same as his descent into Hades : and, by
that descent, was meant his entrance into the Ark. Hence, as Bacchus was
supposed to have been slain and torn in pieces and interred ; so was he like
wise feigned to have visited the woild of spirits. The Greeks believed this
event to have taken place at Lerna in Argolis, doubtless because the comme
morative Mysteries of the infernal Ceres were there celebrated. It was
situated near the sea; and it was at once the scene of the metamorphosis of
Io or Isis into the symbolical heifer, and of the mythological rape of Proser
pine. Here also Danaus was thought to have landed from the ship Argo :
and here was a temple dedicated to Bacchus the Preserver and Venus float* Diod. Bibl. lib. i. p. 13.
1 Clem. Cohort, p. 12. Phurn. de nat. deor. c. xxx. Plut. de Isid. p. 368. Orph. Fragm.
apud Proc. in Tim. lib. i[i. p. 184.
1 Nonni Dionys. lib. vi. Asiat. Res. vol. vi. p. 521. Jul. Firm, de error, prof. rel. p. 13, 14.

ing on the sea, or, in other words, to Noah and the Ark.
The reason, on
account of which Bacchus descended into the infernal regions, was, that he
might fetch his mother from thence.
This he accomplished, and was after
wards translated with her to heaven.1

3. The Lernean Orgies, in which the history of the great father and the
great mother was scenically represented, are said to have been instituted by
the hierophant Philammon: and they were the same as those, at Eleusis. *
Like Adonis, Osiris, and Attis, Bacchus was first lamented as one dead ; after
wards his votaries broke out into the most frantic exclamations of riotous joy
on account of his supposed revival.' Similar rites prevailed in Crete. Julius
Firmicus tells us, that, when he was torn in pieces by the Titans, hie sister
Minerva preserved his heart, and afterwards made a representation of him
in plaister within which she inclosed it. In commemoration of this the
Cretans had an annual festival, in which all that Bacchus had done and suf
fered was regularly exhibited by proper actors. They made the woods re
sound with loud lamentations, and studiously assumed the character of
maniacs. In their phrenzy they tore a living bull with their teeth, and bran
dished serpents in their hands. Above all, with the sound of pipes and the
tinkling of cymbals, they carried about the ark in which Minerva was sup
posed to have concealed his heart.*
4. This ark of Bacchus is certainly the same as the ark of Osiris or
Ammon, which Diodorus expressly calls a ship, and which was similarly
-carried about under the pretended impulse of the deity by eighty of the
priests of Egypt ; a number which is the decuple of their ogdoad of great
navicular gods.5 I greatly fear however, that Firmicus is mistaken in saying
that it was the heart of the god which it contained : for we learn from Cle' Paus. Corinth, p. 155, 156. Strab. Geog. lib. viii. p. 371. iEschyl. Prom. Vinct ver.
674. Schol. in Apoll. Argon, lib. i. ver. 4. Apollod. Bibl. lib. iii. c. 5. j 3.
1 Paus. Corinth, p. 155.
1 Lugcte Liberum, lugcte Proscrpinam, lujcte Attin, lugetc Osyrin. Jul, Firm, de error,
prof. rel. p. 20.
4 Jul. Firm, de err. prof. rel. p. 14, 15. Arnob. adv. gent. lib. v.
5 Diod. Bibl. lib. xvii. p. 528.
Pag. Idol.
vol. 11.
2L
CHAp'
266
',
mens, that it was no heart, but, on the contrary, that disgraceful hieroglyphic
of the great father, which was so very generally introduced into the ancient
Mysteries.' Yet Bacchus was sometimes represented literally, and therefore
more decorously. Pausanias mentions a sacred ark, which, at the capture of
Troy, was thought to have fallen to the lot of Eurypylus. It was said to
have been the work of Vulcan, and the gift of Jupiter to Dardanus. Within
it was placed a figure of Bacchus-Esymnetes : and, at a stated festival, it
was carried in solemn procession by the priests and priestesses much in the
same manner as that of Ammon or Osiris.* A similar ark was used in the
Orgies of the Hetruscans, who are supposed to have received their theology
from Phrygia ; likewise in the Mysteries of the Samothracian Cabin : and it
contained the same hieroglyphic of the great father, to which I have just
alluded. 5
That by the ark of Bacchus we are to understand a ship, is sufficiently
plain from his legendary history, even independent of that ark being palpably
the same as the Argo of Osiris. When an infant, he was inclosed, we are
told, with his mother Semele in an ark, and thus cast into the sea. The
ark, floating on the surface of the waters, bore him in safety to Brasiae near
Epidaurus. Here he landed: and Ino or Isis, having come in the course of
her wanderings to the same place, became his nurse. The sacred cave, in
which she performed her office, and which itself symbolized the mundane
Ark, was still shewn in the days of Pausanias.4 Nor is this the only instance,
in which that deity appears as a navigator. He is represented by Philostratus
as sailing in a ship decked with vine-leaves and ivy : and there was a tradition,
that once, when he was performing a voyage to Hetruria (by which was meant
the introduction of the Bacchic Mysteries into that country), and was in dan
ger from the treachery of the mariners ; he changed the mast and the oars of
1 Clem. Alex. Cohort, p. 12. Diodorus justly deduces the impious rites of tbe phallus
from the allegorical calamities which befell Osiris and Bacchus. To the same source he with
equal propriety refers the worship of Priapus, Typhon, or Baal-Peor. Diod. Bibl. lib. iv. p.
214. lib. i. p. 19.
* Paus. Achaic. p. 435, 436.
1 Clem. Alex. Cohort, p. 12. Euseb. Praep. Evan. lib. ii. c. 3.
4 Paus. Lacon. p. 209-
267
the vessel into serpents, the vessel itself into a stone rising out of the sea,
CHAP. it.
and the mariner sinto dolphins. 1

5. As an arkite god, he was highly venerated at Thebes, and was some
times thought to have been born there; whence he was called Thebegenes:
but the Theba of his real second nativity was not the city, but the Ark from
which the city received its name. Theba was certainly the same as Hippa ;
who, like lno or Isis, was feigned to have been the nurse of Bacchus and to
have received him into her womb at his second birth from what the Greeks
by an odd misprision of terms called the thigh of Jupiter.% Merit happens
to be the first oblique case of the word, which in their language signifies a
thigh : but it is also the name of the famous sacred mountain of the Hindoos,
which was the favourite abode of the mariner-god Siva after the deluge, and
from which Deo-Naush proceededon his celebrated career of victory. Now
Deo-Naush is certainly the same as the Dionusus of the Greeks; and the
arkite Dionusus is no less evidently the Arghanath Siva. The Meru then,
whence Bacchus was born, has nothing in common with the thigh of Jupiter
beyond the sound which it conveyed to a Greek ear. As Diodorus excel
lently observes, it was the Indian mountain so called, which the poets
strangely transformed into a thigh : but of that mountain Ararat was the true
prototype, for there the real Bacchus experienced his second birth from the
womb of his allegorical mother. '
What was meant by this second birth is
' Philost. Icon. lib. i. c. lp. Apoll. Bibl. lib. iii. c. 5. 3. Ovid. Metam. lib. iii. ver.
629700. Nonni Dionys. lib. xlvii.
' 1 'O it a.ito rou pjjou rov Aioj irgtem* si; aunjv. Proc. in Tim. pud Gesn. Orph. p. 401.
* Diod. Bibl. lib. ii.i p. 123. Strab. Geog. lib. xv. p. 687- It is not unworthy of observa
tion, that Sosthencs, as cited by Plutarch, instead of saying that Dionusus was born on mount
Meru, tells us that mount Argillus was the place of his nativity. Plut. de flumin. Argillus
however is really the same as Meru : for the word is compounded of Argha and Ila, which
are equally titles of the ship-goddess that delights to haunt the summit of the holy mountain.
Accordingly, the top of Meru, where the ship Argha rested at the close of the deluge, is styled
lla-vratta or the circle of Ila. The propriety of this opinion is manifest from the appellation,
which the divines of Thibet still bestow upon mount Meru. Tbey call it Righiel, which is a
mere literal transposition ot Arghiel, whence the Greeks formed their Argil or Argillus.
With the same reference to the mystic ship, the sacred caverns of the old Cimmerii in Italy
were called Argillce. Strab. Geog. lib. v. p. 244. From a similar source likewise proceeded
the British name of Argyle ; which the Cimmerian Druids have bestowed upon a district in
Scotland, abounding in holy lakes, and in the immediate vicinity of their sacred islands.

book iv. sufficiently evident : yet it is worthy of observation, that Diodorus even ex
pressly refers it to the epoch of the deluge ; so that its true import was by no
means lost in the gentile world, though obscured by the humour of physical
allegorizing. Considering Bacchus as a personification of the vine, he tells
us, that the god died at the period of the flood of Deucalion when the whole
earth was ravaged by the waters ; and that he revived with other natural
productions when the inundation retired. This restoration to life, when the
deity who had vanished for a season appeared again to the eyes of men, is the
same thing, he asserts, as his second birth. *
6". With respect to his nurse Hippa, she was thought by some to be the
daughter of Danaus, who was feigned to have sailed to Greece in the ship
Argo: but, according to the Orphic poet, she was the same as Proserpine
or Cybele. * She was doubtless the same also as Isis ; for that goddess and
Hippa are indifferently said to have been the nurse or recipient of Bacchus.
Proclus styles her the life of the Universe, and ascribes to her the charac
teristics of Ceres : accordingly, in the mythology both of Greece and of
Britain and of Hindostan, Ceres or Ceridwen or Sri was supposed to have
assumed the form of a Hippa or mare, and thus to have received the em
braces either of the ruler of the ocean or of the navicular Sun, who had taken
the corresponding shape of ahorse.' Hippa, in short, the fabled nurse of
Bacchus, was the same as the ship Ceridwen or Argo or Argha : that is to
say, she was the same as Theba or the Ark, that mythological goddess, who
was esteemed the common receptacle of all the hero-deities. Sometimes she
-was called Nusa ; as Bacchus himself was denominated Nusus or DioNusus, by the Hindoos expressed Deo-Naush. Dio-Nus is evidently the
divine Nus or Noah ; and Nusa is but the feminine form of the same word.
The appellation Nusa was no less famous than Theba or Argha : and from
this imaginary nurse of Bacchus many different places were thought to have
received their names. Thus there was a mount Nusa in Beotia, in Thrace,
in Arabia, in India, in Lybia, and in Naxus ; a city Nusa, in Caria, in
1 Diod. Bibl. lib. iii. p. 196.
1 Hesych. Lex. 'litirmr. Orph. Hymn, xlviii.
* Proc. in Tim. apud Gosn. Orph. p. 401. Ptol. Heph. Nov. Hist. lib. iii. p. 312. Davies's
Mythol. p. 257t 2o8. Asiat. Res. vol. iii. p. Ifj8.

mount Caucasus, and in India ; and an island Nusa; in the Nile.
269
Scytho-
polis was once called Nusa : such also was the name of one of the peaks of
the arkite Parnassus : and there was a Nusa in Ethiopia, where the Mysteries
of Bacchus were formerly celebrated with much devotion. Nusa likewise
was the fancied scene of Jupiter's final triumph over Typhon or the ocean i
by whom Bacchus, as well as the other hero-gods, was thought to have been
put to flight : and it was over the plains of Nusa, that this deity fled in wild
dismay from Lycurgus, ere he plunged into the Erythrean sea where he was
protected by Thetis from the rage of his enemy.1 The island Nusa was, I
doubt not, one of the sacred islands, which, like Delos and Chemmis, typified
the mundane Ark : the several cities of that name were so called in honour
of the great universal mother Nusa, Theba, Argha, or Baris: and the various
hills, which were similarly designated, were each a high place of the transmi
grating diluvian god, each a copy of Ararat where the primeval Nusa rested
and where the deity Nusus experienced that second birth so famous among
the old mythologists.
As for the flight of Bacchus from Lycurgus and his
plunging into the Erythrean sea, I take it to be the same event as his flight
from Typhon : each relates to the perils, which Noah underwent during the
prevalence of the deluge.
7. Different accounts are given of the birth of Bacchus. Sometimes he
was said to be the son of Jupiter and Proserpine, each of whom, like Bacchus
himself, was reckoned a Cabiric deity ; in which case, allusively to his mystic
descent into Hades, he was esteemed an infernal god : sometimes, of Jupiter
and Semele : sometimes, of Cabitus, which is clearly an erroneous reading
for Cabirus: sometimes, of an Asiatic or Indian prince named Caprius ;
this was Bacchus-Sabazius, the Siva or Seba of Hindoo mythology : some
times, of Nilus or Oceanus (as the Egyptians called their sacred symbolical
river), who was thought to have built one of the cities denominated Nusa :
sometimes, of Nusus and Thyone ; the Di-Youi or female principle of the
Brahmenical superstition, which floated in the form of the ship Argha on the
waves of the deluge : and sometimes, of Jupiter and the Moon; by which
' Schol. in Iliad, lib. vi. ver. 134. Plin. Nat. Hist. lib. v. c. 18. Apollod. Bibl. lib. iii.
c. 4. Herod. Hist. lib. iii. c. 97. Apollod. Bibl. lib. i. c. 6. Horn. Iliad, lib. vi. ver. 130.
Nonni Dionys. lib. xx. Strab. Geog. lib. xiv. p. 649. Asiat.Res. vol. vi. p. 500, 501.
C,,AP-
270
book iv.
was meant the Ark symbolized by the lunar crescent. 1 These fables are all
fundamentally the same : and they equally serve to teach us, that, in whatever
country he might be worshipped, he was a Cabiric god born from the Ark.
8. We are told by the sacred historian, that Noah was the first man of
the renovated world, that he was a cultivator of the ground, that he was the
original postdiluvian planter of the vine, and that he was unhappily betrayed
into drunkeness.
The character of Bacchus here again corresponds with that of Noah.
Though the Greeks so far corrupted his real history, as to represent him as
one of the younger gods ; yet the Orphic poet tells us, that he was the first
born, and that under the name of Dionusus he was the first who came forth
to the light of day from the floating egg within which he had been inclosed.1
He was the oldest then of all the divinities : and, immediately after his mystic
birth from the egg, previous to which he was supposed to have lain hidden
after an ineffable manner, he became the inventor of wine. ' His mother
Semele herself was sometimes fabled to have been a vine : and his whole
legend is full of allusions to the planting of the first vineyard by Noah.*
Setting out from Thebes ; by which was really meant, not the city, but the
'
Thebaor Ark from which the city received its name : setting out from Thebes,
he was thought, like Osiris, to have travelled with an army over the whole
world ; and, in his progress, he was supposed to have taught mankind the
art of cultivating the vine, of expressing the juice, and of receiving it into
vats. Wherever he went, he was attended by a host of Satyrs, Sileni, and
Bacchantes, inflamed with wine, and infuriated with enthusiastic devotion.
He himself at their head, driven to a state of phrenzy by Juno, wandered
first over Syria and Egypt ; in the latter of which countries he was hospitably
received by king Proteus. Thence he went into Phrygia, where he was
initiated into the Mysteries of Rhea or Cybele. From Phrygia he proceeded
' Arrian. de exp. Alex. lib. ii. c. 16. Diod. Bibl. lib. v. p. 342. Athen. Legat. c. xix.
Ampel. c. ix. Nonni Dion. lib. v. Orph. Hymn, xxviii. xxix. Cicer. de Nat. deor. lib. iii.
c.23. Apollod. Bibl. lib. iii. c. 4. Etyra. Magn. Zay^svs1 Orph. Hymn. v. 1, 2. xxix. 2. Fragm. apud Macrob. Saturn, lib. i. c. 18.
3 Orph. Hymn. xxix. 3.
* Schol. in Hes. Theog. ver. 940. Athen. Legat. c. xix.
271
Into Thrace; and, passing through Scythia, he made a progress through the
whole of India. Wherever he went, he erected upright pillars, the constant
symbols of his disgraceful worship from east to west. At length he returned
to Thebes and Argos : and, having brought back his mother from the infernal
regions, was finally with her translated to heaven. ' These travels, which, in
the traditions of every country, commence, either from some place denomi
nated after the Ark, from some mountain where the Ark was thought to have
grounded, or from some region where the god was feigned to have been set
afloat in an Ark, relate very evidently to the origination of mankind from
mount Ararat and the ship of the deluge and to their subsequent dispersion
over the face of the whole earth. As demonolatry was introduced before the
dispersion, wherever the degenerate children of Noah migrated, they carried
with them the ark of their deity, and believed themselves to travel under his
immediate influence and protection. Hence Noah himself was feigned to
have visited every part of the globe : and hence he was made the first king,
the special ancestor, and the tutelary divinity, of all the nations of the earth.
On this principle, though many different Greek cities claimed the honour of
having given birth to Bacchus ; though the Cretans believed him to have been
bom in Crete, the Egyptians in Egypt or at Nusa in Arabia, and the Hin
doos at Nusa near mount Meru : yet, since he was the common progenitor
of all mankind, with the sole exception of the Armenian Ararat we are not to
seek his true origin in any one country rather than another.*
With the character of Noah, Bacchus likewise sustains that of Adam ; for
the Gentiles esteemed the one patriarch a mere reappearance of the other.
Hence, as the first man, as the first agriculturist, and as the universal father,
he is not more the former of these than the latter. In conformity with this
double character, which may be traced throughout the whole of ancient Pa
ganism, lus Mysteries seem to haVe been purposely contrived. They, who
celebrated them, were crowned with snakes ; a serpent was the peculiar sym
bol of initiation; and the votaries of the god, as Clemens remarks, perpetu1 Diod. Bibl. lib. iii. p. 197- Orph. Hymn. xli. Apollod. Bibl. lib. iii. c. 5. Lactan.
Instit. lib. i. c. 10.
1 Diod. Bibl. lib. iii. p. 195206. Jul. Firm, deerr. prof. rel. p. 13. Herod. Hist. lib. ii.
c. 144, 145. Strab. Gcog. lib. xv. p. 1008.
CHAP- ,T-
273
Hook iv.
THE ORIGIN Of PAGAN IDOLATRY-.
aily called upon the name of that Eva, by whom the pristine error of man
entered into the world. *
When I consider the prevalent doctrine of heathen
mythology relative to the successive manifestations of the great father in

different though similar worlds, I cannot esteem the conjecture of Clemens
respecting the word Eva by any means improbable.
VI. Diodorus tells us, that the Egyptians considered their god Osiris to
be the same as the Greek Dionusus, and that the Indians similarly supposed
him to have appeared in their country. Hence, in the days of Arrian, the
latter people ascribed those identical actions to their own Dionusus, which
the former did to Osiris and the Greeks to Bacchus. He first brought men
together into communities, gave them laws, and taught them the art of
making wine. He was likewise their instructor in agriculture and in the
worship of the gods ; and he was the first person, who yoked oxen to the
plough.*
Such being the case, the name of Dionus clearly leads us to identify him
with the Hindoo Deo-Naush ; though the legend of that personage does not
at present coincide so minutely with the classical and Egyptian accounts of
Bacchus and Osiris, as it appears to have done at the time when Arrian
flourished.5 Still however he is described, as similarly subduing and civi
lizing the whole world. Descending, according to the Puranas, from the
elevated plains of little Bokhara, the arkite and Paradisiacal Meru of Brahmenical theology, he invaded with a numerous army the countries of Samarcand, Bahlac, and Cabul, then inhabited by the Sacas and Sacasenas, the
Saxons of our western part of the globe. Afterwards he conquered Iran,
Egypt, and Ethiopia or Chusistan : and then, proceeding through Varahadvvip or Europe, he subdued Chandra-dwip or the British isles, the favou
rite abode of the god Lunus or Chandra. Next he advanced into Curu,
which includes the northern parts of Europe and the whole of Siberia : and
at length, having made himself master of China, all the countries which lie
* Clem. Cohort, p. 9.
* Diod. Bibl. lib. iv. p. 210. Arrian. Hist. Ind. p. 321.
3 This god was styled by the old Irish Bach and Dia-Nos, a clear proof of the close affiuity
of their idolatry to that of Greece and Ilindostan. Vallancey's Vindic. p. 266.
273
to the south of it, and the whole of Hindostan, he returned to the high plains
of Meru through the pass of Hardwar.1 These fabulous conquests of DeoNaush are evidently the same as those of Dionusus and Osiris, and they
certainly relate to the same events. As both the Greek and the Egyptian,
god equally sets out from a city denominated Theba, by which was really
meant the origination of all men from the Ark : so the Hindoo deity com
mences his expedition from mount Meru, where by the vanity of local appro
priation the ship of the deluge was said to have grounded as the waters retired
from off the face of the earth. For Thebes and Meru substitute the Ark
and mount Ararat ; and a mythological tale is changed into authentic
history.
What the Brahmens say of Deo-Naush throws much light both on his
own particular character and on the general principles of demonolatry.
Naush, we are told, was at first a mere mortal ; but on mount Meru he
became a Deva or god: hence he is called Deva-Naush or Deo-Naush in
the vulgar dialects. Like the spiritual rulers of Tartary and Tibet, which
countries include the holy mountains of Meru, Deo-Naush did not properly
speaking die; but his soul shifted its habitation and entered into a new body,
whenever the old one was worn out either through age or sickness. 1 This
transmigrating Deo-Naush, who became a god on the summit of the Paradi
siacal and arkite Meru, is evidently the same as Menu or the great father :
and, as he is ultimately no other than Buddha, the Lama of Tibet is his
imagined living representative.
Doctrines of such a description were not altogether unknown in the west.
The soul of Osiris was thought successively to animate each living bull Apis :
and, even at a comparatively late period, Cleopatra and her brother affected
to be what the Hindoos would call Avatars of Isis and Dionusus.' This
claim of transmigratory godhead perfectly accorded with the old theological
system of Egypt.
Diodorus has preserved a curious account of the birth of
Bacchus, in his character of a descendant from Cadmus. He tells us, that

Cadmus and his daughter Semele lived at Thebes in Egypt; that Semele
' Asiat. Res. vol. vi. p. 503.
* Asiat. Res. vol. v. p. 292.
3 Plut. in vit. Anton.
Pag. Idol.
vol. n.
2 M
274
book iv. proved with child ; and that at the end of seven months she was delivered of
a son, who bore all the marks which are attributed to Osiris.
Cadmus upon
this, by advice of an oracle, instituted sacrifices to the new-born god, and

gave him out to be a manifestation of Osiris among men. 1 Such a manifes
tation is plainly no other than what the Hindoos denominate an Avatar : and
the story seems to prove not unequivocally, that the ancient Egyptians some
times produced a living child and asserted that in him their favourite divinity
had become incarnate.
VII. Deo-Naush then on the top of Meru must certainly be the Greek
Dionus, who was supposed to have been born at Nusa in the region of the
same mount Meru. But Siva or Ishuren is equally described as the chief
god of Meru, where he appears with all the attributes of Dionus. Hence
it will follow, that, as Deo-Naush and Siva are alike the classical Dionus,
they must be mutually the same as each other ; though the single hero-deity,
according to the common humour of the Hindoos, has been divided into two
persons : and I strongly suspect, as the characters of the two exactly make
up that of Bacchus, and as we are told by Arrian that the Indian legend
respecting that deity perfectly corresponded with the Grecian, that the divi
sion in question had not taken place in bis days, but that Deo-Naush wa*
then a mere title of Siva.
1 . Cicero informs us, that it was specially the Indian Bacchus who was
called Sabazius or Sabazi, though the name was equally well known in the
west. 1 His intelligence was accurate : for, in the Seva, Siva, or Seba, of
Hindostan, united in composition with the title Isi'or Isani, we may not
obscurely recognize the Sabazi of Thrace and Hellas. We may similarly
trace the name of the Egyptian Osiris or Isiris in the Brahmenical Ishuren
or Iswara, which is one of the most common appellations of Siva.
Now,
as Osiris was supposed to have penetrated into India no less than Bacchus,
and as Osiris and Bacchus are confessedly the same god, we at once recognize
in Siva or Ishuren both the Greek and the Egyptian deity. Agreeably to this
identification, the most prominent parts of his history will be found to agree
with what is related of Bacchus and Osiris ; and they similarly teach us to
refer the human part of his character to the great transmigrating father.
* Cicer. de nat. deor. lib. iii. c. 23.
275
According to the Tamuli of Tranquebar, Maidashuren or the great Ishuren CHAP. it.
was born at Nisadabura in the vicinity of mount Meru.
He was of a gigan
tic stature, had the horns of a bull, and was accustomed to intoxicate himself
with wine. His attendants were eight demons of the race of those Indian or
Scythic shepherds, who bore the name of Kobaler : and he rode in a chariot,
drawn by leopards or lions or tigers. Here, as professor Bayer justly re
marks, we have the Nusa and the Meru, where many even of the western
mythologists supposed Bacchus to have been born : we have the bovine
horns, and the precise vehicle, of the classical god : we have the same love
of intoxication, the same attendant Kobali : nothing in short is wanting to
complete the fable of ancient Greece.1
The eight attendants, of whom the
Tamuli speak, are doubtless the same as the eight great gods of Egypt, and
as those eight forms of Siva in which, as the Brahinens tell us, the deity
shines conspicuous on the summit of Meru : while the pastoral Kobali are
the Indo-Scythic Palli, who proudly called themselves Cai-Palli or Co-Pdlli,
that is, the Illustrious or Royal Shepherds.1
Equally analogous in other particulars is his character to that of the Greek
and Egyptian divinity. As Osiris was inclosed within an ark and was the
navigator of the first ship Argo, and as Bacchus was likewise inclosed within
an ark and thus committed to the waters of the mighty deep; so did Siva
float on the surface of the deluge in the mysterious ship Argha. Nor is this
the only point of resemblance between them. The same indecorous mode of
symbolizing the great father and the great mother, which prevailed among
the Greeks and Egyptians, is familiar likewise to the Hindoos.
seen, that the ark of Bacchus or Osiris sometimes contained
the deity, and sometimes only an ineffable hieroglyphic of him ;
symbols, adopted into the diluvian worship, were with reason
the votaries themselves. '
We have
a figure of
for so the
called by
We have moreover seen, that the ancient my-
1 Bayer. Hist. Bactr. p. 2, 3.

1 A branch of these, as we shall hereafter see, were the Philitim, or Huc-Sos, or Shep
herd-kings, of Egypt. Vide infra b. i]. c. 5.
1 The festival, during which the sacred arks were carried in procession, was called Afforopofia, as the author of the Etymologicum Magnum says, Sia, ro atftpa. xai purryfi* fifciy,
or, as Suidas informs us, nttiiij r* tffyr* tv marai: efigw r$ hui al iraf9o<.
276
book iv.
THE ORIGIN OT- PAGAN IDOLATRY.
thologists agree in deriving the base superstition, to which I allude, from

the fabled sufferings of Bacchus and Osiris; which sufferings are imme
diately connected with the deluge. Now we find exactly the same notions
prevalent among the Hindoos, with respect to their god Siva and his consort
the ship Argha.
They sailed indeed conjointly over the waters of the flood,
and each of them subsequently assumed the form of a dove : but their spe
cial symbols are the generative powers of nature, male and female ; which
at the period of that eventful voyage, when the whole mundane system was
dissolved, were reduced, we are told, to their simplest elements.1 Other
hieroglyphics of a less offensive description, which are conspicuously intro
duced into the worship of this eastern divinity, equally serve to identify him
with Bacchus and Osiris. The sacred bull Nandi, of which Siva is the ri
der, is not less famous in Hindoo mythology, than the Apis of Osiris and
the tauric form of Bacchus are in the recondite lore of Egypt and Greece :
the serpents of the Dionysiaca yield not, in point of celebrity, to those
with which Siva is adorned : and, if Bacchus, Adonis, and Osiris, are all
infernal gods ; Siva, in the character of Yama, is equally the sovereign lord
of Patala or Hades.*
Siva is esteemed not only the god of generation, but likewise the avenging
deity of destruction : and the eastern sages, in a manner not much unlike
that of Plutarch and Macrobius, have indulged in much refined speculation
on this contrariety of attributes. It certainly originated from the doctrine of
a successive destruction and reproduction of worlds : and the diluvian cha
racter of Siva clearly points out the manner, in which it ought to be under
stood. Noah beheld the rain of one world, and the production of another
out of the wreck which was left behind : he was no less the universal father
of the present race of men, than he was in a subordinate sense the destroyer
of the first race. Hence, when he was erected into a divinity, he was con
sidered at once as the tremendous agent of destruction, and as the prolific
author of generation.' This part of the character of Siva coincides with the

* Moor's Hind. Fanth. p. 306. Asiat. Res. vol. i. p. 230.
3 To destroy, according to the Fedantis of India, the Safis of Persia, and many philosophers
277
fable of Saturn devouring all his children except three, and yet being the
general father of the hero-gods. The Orphic poet indeed celebrates him, in
the very spirit of a Hindoo divine, as the god who successively destroyed
and reproduced all things.1
The number of persons preserved in the Ark was eight : hence, as Siva is
the god of the ship Argha, the Hindoos have a notion that he multiplied
himself into eight different forms. They have indeed disfigured this curious
tradition by the arbitrary refinements of Materialism : but, since the fa
vourite abode of the eight forms is the summit of the sacred mountain
Cailasa or Meru, it is not difficult to perceive, whence the idea originated.*
a. I cannot find, that Siva is thought by the Hindoos to have died and
afterwards to have returned to life, as was the case with Osiris, Adonis, and
Bacchus ; any more than his successive manifestations may be deemed a se
ries of deaths and revivals : but, considered as the god of the infernal re
gions, he is evidently the same as the Pluto or Hades of the Greeks, the
Stygian Osiris of the Egyptians, and the Muth or Death of the Phenicians.
ken of
tell us,
and yet
In this character, and indeed by the last of these names, he is spo

in a very remarkable manner by the Hindoo mythologists. They
that the Universe was once incircled by Death eager to devour ;
that Death himself was an intellectual being, that is to say a Nous
or a Menu, who sprang from the golden mundane egg.'

Here Siva, viewed individually and not as one of a triad, identifies him
self with Brahma, agreeably to the Indian dogma that the three great gods
are but a triplication of one and the same great father :* for, as Death,
or Siva in his character of the infernal destroying power, was born out of
the golden mundane egg subsequent to his having devoured the whole world ;
so likewise out of the same egg was produced Brahma, who thence is styled
thefirst male. His production also succeeded one of the great mundane
of our European schools, is only to generate and reproduce in anotherform. Hence the god of
destruction is holden in this country to preside over generation. Asiat. Res. vol. i. p. 250.
1 Orph. Hymn. xii. 3.
1 Asiat. Res. vol. i. p. 253. vol. viii. p. 369.
3 Asiat. Res. vol. viii. p. 439, 440.
* Asiat. Res. vol. viii. p. 396, 397. Moor's Hind. Panth. p. 13, 33, 7, 44, 277. 294.
Asiat. Res. vol. i. p. 241, 267.
CHAP. ,y'
278
cook it.
revolutions : for the egg is said to have floated on the waters of the vast
abyss, which always overspread the face of the globe between the destruc
tion and reproduction of each two successive worlds, antecedent to its giving
birth to the inclosed god.1 The Orphic poet has furnished us with exactly
the same account of the ancient personage, whom he calls the first-born,
whom he describes as bearing the form of a bull, whom he represents as
driven about at the mercy of the winds, whom he makes the universal pa
rent both of gods and men, and whom he identifies with Phanes and Priapus and therefore with Dionusus. This mysterious being, who was twiceborn and who was long concealed in impenetrable darkness, was produced,
like Death and Brahma, from an e^g.1
What we are to understand by this egg, is sufficiently plain. It was a type
both of the World and of the Ark, which itself was esteemed a World in
miniature. But that egg, which floated upon a boundless ocean during the
period between two successive mundane systems, and from which Brahma
and Dionusus are equally thought to have been produced by a second birth,
must be the Ark. The reason is obvious : Dionusus, who was exposed in
an ark, has been shewn to be Noah ; and Siva, who floated on the waters
of the deluge in the ship Argha, has also been shewn to be Noah : but
Brahma is only a modification of the character of Siva : therefore the birth
of Brahma from the navicular egg must be the birth of Noah Irom the ship
of the flood. Agreeably to this interpretation, we find Brahma likew ise re
presented as sailing on the mighty deep in the calix of the lotos ; which,
with the Hindoos as with the Egyptians, is at once a symbol of the World
and of the ship Argha.5 Brahma therefore in the lotos is undoubtedly the
same as Siva in the ship. Nor is this all : in singular coincidence with the
theology of Egypt, the lotos is supposed to be the cradle of Brahma,
in which he floated on the surface of the ocean
said to have been born from that flower, no less
If then the lotos be esteemed a cradle, Brahma
teemed an infant. But he is also declared to be
* Instit. of Menu. c. i.
3 Asiat. Res. ol . p. 243.
* Asiat. Res. vol. viii. p. 308,
* Orph. Hymn. v.
Moor's Hind. Panth. p. 9. .
and he himself is
than from ttie egg.4
himself must be es
the Sun. Therefore
279
the Hindoos, as well as the Egyptians, represent the Sun as an infant sailing over the sea in a lotos.
The similar allegorical birth of Brahma and Bacchus from an egg, in
which the former is said to have remained shut up a complete year,
the time of Noah's confinement withiu the Ark, is in itself sufficient to shew
their identity, to say nothing of their each being described as the first-born
and as the universal parent: hence I think it not improbable, that Bromius
or Brumius, which was one of the titles of Bacchus, is the same appellation
as Brahma or Bruhma, as it is sometimes written. The Broum of the pa
gan Irish, which is a name of their Ce-Bacche or illustrious Bacchus, ap
pears to be another slight variation of Brahma: and, in a similar manner,
it is not unreasonable to conjecture, that the appellation of the classical
Bacchus and the Irish Bacche may be traced in the Sanscrit word Vagis or
Bagis, which is one of the titles of Siva. But the circu?nstantial evidence
is what I chiefly wish to dwell upon : such etymologies may be accepted or
rejected at pleasure without at all affecting the general argument. The
Hindoo sect of the Vaishnavas or special worshippers of Vishnou say, that
Brahma was born from a lotos which sprang from the navel of Vishnou
while sleeping in the vast abyss.1 This however is a mere variation of the
genuine legend, which indifferently exhibits him as being produced from a
lotos or an egg, and therefore by a necessary consequence from the ship
Argha which is equally typified by both those symbols.
3. The character of Brahma melts into that of Vishnou, much in the
same almost insensible manner as Siva identifies himself with Brahma.
Each of the two gods, whom I have last considered, is thought to have
floated upon the surface of the ocean ; the one in the ship Argha, and the
other in the calix of the lotos which is declared to be a type of the Argha.
The same striking circumstance occurs also repeatedly in the history of
Vishnou. He is called Narayan or the being that i?ioves on the waters,
and he is likewise denominated the first male ; both which titles equally be
long to Brahma.*
The reason of his bearing such appellations is clearly
' Asiat. lies. vol. viii. p. 52. Sec Plate II. Fig. 1.
1 Asiat. Res. vol. i. p. 242. Instit. of Menu. c. i.
c**r-.
280
shewn by the mode in which he is represented, and by the fables which are
told respecting him.
Sometimes, as in the great reservoir at Catmandu, he
appears, fashioned of blue marble, in a recumbent posture on a sort of bed

or cradle ; which is so placed, as to exhibit the semblance of a boat upborne
by the literal water which surrounds it. Sometimes, as on a remarkable
sculptured rock in the Ganges and in various Hindoo paintings, we behold
him sleeping on the folds of the great sea-serpent Ananta ; which, coiled up
into the precise form of a boat, wafts the deity in safety over the waves of
the boundless ocean.1 Sometimes he lies in a posture of deep meditation,
with his foot inserted in his mouth so as to shadow out the circle of eternity
as exemplified in an endless succession of similar worlds, on the naviform
leaf of the Indian fig-tree ; which similarly floats on the surface of the great
deep. And sometimes, with his consort Lacshmi, he sleeps secure in his buoy
ant paradise of Vaicontha ; which favoured abode and the summit of Meru are
the only places that remain free from water, while the wholeearth is inundated.1
If such modes of representing the great father required any explanation,
we might receive it from the Hindoos themselves. On the death of Brahma,
we are told, all the worlds are overflowed by a deluge : and Cailasa and Vai
contha, or the summit of Meru and a certain floating Paradise, alone re
main amidst the universal devastation. At that time Vishnou places himself
on the leaf of the Banian tree, or (as some say) on that of the lotos or the
betel ; and in this navicular cradle, under the figure of a little child, he floats
on the sea of milk with the toe of his right foot placed in his mouth. In
this posture he remains, until Brahma is born again from a lotos which
springs forth from his navel. Thus it is, that the ages and worlds succeed
each other, and are perpetually renewed.' Vishnou then or the great father
is he, who floats in a ship, variously symbolized by a serpent, a leaf, an egg,
or a lotos, during that period of universal inundation, which is supposed to
intervene between each two worlds ; in other words he is Noah : but, since
a deluge equally precedes the old world and the new world, and since the
great father equally floats upon the surface of every deluge, he is not more
' See Plate II. Fig. 1.
1 Asiat. Res. vol. i. p. 26"l. Maurice's Hist, of Hind. vol. i. p. 401. Moor's Hind. Pantli.
p. 23, 26, 27, 82, 103, 418, 429. plate 7, 8, 20, 75.
1 Moor's Hind. Panth. p. 103, 104.

Noah than Adam.
281
The sleep of Vishnou is doubtless the same as the
death-like repose of Osiris in the ark, and as that rest of Brahma in his
floating egg or his lotos-cradle, which is sometimes expressly described as
his death in one world only that he may be born again into another. When
the great father is supposed to die, then the Ark is his coffin : when he ex
periences a second birth, the Ark is his mother : when, in consequence of
that birth, he is esteemed an infant, the Ark is his cradle : when he sleeps
in deep repose until he awakes into a new world, the Ark serves him for a
couch or a bed : when he is venerated as the universal parent both of gods
and men, the Ark is his consort.
The account, which the Hindoos give us of Vishnou-Narayan, is imme
diately connected with chaos and darkness : and, as is commonly the case in
ancient mythology which was specially built on the doctrine of a succession
of similar mundane systems, the primeval state of the world at the period
which we deem that of its creation, and its disorganized condition during
the prevalence of the deluge, are intimately blended together. They re
present him moving, as his name implies, on the waters, in the character of
the first male and the principle of all nature ; which was wholly surrounded
in the beginning by Tamas or darkness, the ' Chaos and primordial night of
the Greek mythologists, the Thammuz of Scripture, and the Thaumaz or
Thomas of the old Egyptians.' This name Tamas, under all its various
modifications, may probably be deduced from Theom or Thaum, which, in
the language of the Hebrews and the Babylonians, denotes the great abyss
of dark waters. It is equally a title of Adonis and Buddha : and it is borne
by them exactly in the same sense, as the ocean is deemed a form of Iswara, as Osiris no less than his adversary Typhon is sometimes identified
with the sea, as Janus is said to be the same as Chaos, as the sea is called
the tears of Saturn, and as Saturn himself is esteemed the element of
water.1
4. In the Avatar of Crishna, the fabled sufferings and ultimate triumph
of Vishnou are precisely those of the Egyptian Horus and the Greek Apollo.
* Asiat. Res. vol. iii. p. 126.
* Asiat. Res. vol. i. p. 255. Pint, dc Isid. p. 364. Ovid. Fast. lib. i. ver. 103. Clem. Alex.
Strom, lib. v. p. 571. Sallust. de diis et mund. c. iv. Macrob. in somn. Scip. lib. ii C. 11.
Pag. Idol.
vol. n.
2N
CHAP' ,T-
282
THE ORIGIN OF PAGAN IDOLATRY. .
He was born an infant ; but his birth was concealed through fear of the
tyrant Cansa, to whom it had been predicted that a child born at that time
would destroy him. He was fostered therefore in Mathura by a herdsman
and his wife : and he spent his youth in sporting with nine rural damsels of
extraordinary beauty, in playing upon his flute, and in dancing away the
gaily revolving hours. When conveyed from the fury of Cansa, he was
borne over the sacred river Yamuna in a navicular cradle or Argha, the
great serpent Calya following him with inveterate malice : but he afterwards
fought and slew the monster in the midst of the waters, notwithstanding the
intercession of the sea-nymphs in his behalf; and, at a more advanced age,
he put to death his cruel enemy Cansa. During the period that he was sub
ject to this persecution, he is said to have hid himself in the Moon ; and
he is also fabled, with three companions and all his flocks and herds, to have
taken refuge in the womb of a vast serpent which he created for the pur
pose.1 He rescued the children of his preceptor from an inundation of the
sea, which had carried them down to the infernal dominions of Yama: he
supported a mountain upon his finger during the prevalence of a deluge : and
he appears as the tutelary genius of an Argha, which equally bore him away
from the rage of his enemy and is thought to have been filled with all kinds
of animals.*
In this legend it is easy to perceive, that Crishna's escape in the Argha
from Cansa and Calya is the same as that of Apollo and Horus in the floating
island from the serpent Python or Typhon ; that the river Yamuna occupies
the place of the Egean sea and the sacred lake near Buto ; and that the
final victory of Crishna is no other than the parallel final victory of the Greek
and Egyptian deities. The outline in short of all the three fables is this.
The great father is exhibited as an infant, in allusion to the mystic birth of
Noah from the Ark. A monster, which the Egyptians plainly tell us is the
ocean, which the Greeks ascribe to the epoch of the deluge, and which the
Hindoos represent as being slain in the midst of the waters, seeks his life.
For a season he is constrained to hide himself from his enemy : and this he
' See Plate II. Fig. 5.
* Moor's Hind. Panth. p. 197, 199, 201, 202, 213, 280, 287, 394. plates 58, 59, 6S, 62,
64. Asiat. Res. vol. i. p. 259262.
983
does, either in the ship Argha which serves him for a cradle, or in a floating
island, or in the Moon, or in a large serpent which he constructed for that
purpose. Here he spends his time in the midst of flocks and herds, which
are inclosed along with him in the same machine ; and remains safe under
the care of an ancient shepherd, who is the same person as himself viewed
under a different aspect, just as Osiris ultimately identifies himself with the
infant Horus. But at length he prevails over his inveterate enemy; and,
either in the midst of the great waters or in the slime left by the retiring de
luge, effects his total destruction.1
5. Thus it appears, that the great gods of Hindostan, when viewed seve
rally, are mutually the same as each other, and that they are all equally the
universal father: but, when viewed conjointly, they exhibit a somewhat
different aspect. They then constitute a triad emanating from a fourth yet
older divinity ; who, by a mysterious act of self-triplication, becomes three
while yet he remains but one, each member of the triad being ultimately re
solvable into the monad. What we are to understand by this phraseology,
which has most unhappily been thought to have originated from some tradi
tional knowledge of the doctrine of the Holy Trinity, is best ascertained by
the declarations of the Hindoos themselves and by the legendary histories of
their three great gods.
Their doctrine is, that, at the commencement of every new mundane
system, Brahm and the three subordinate divinities, appear on earth, under
a human form, in the persons of Menu and his three sons ; that this transmi
gration regularly takes place at certain great intervals ; that, at the end of
every revolving period, the world and all its inhabitants are destroyed by a
flood of water ; that the universal father, comprehending within himself a
1 Since the knowledge of Christianity has been diffused over Asia, the legend of Crishna has
been interpolated by the Brahmens with various circumstances taken from the gospels, so that
the whole exhibits a tolerably accurate account of the escape of Jesus from Herod : but the
more simple narrative, which is here given, enables us easily to distinguish between what is
spuriousand what is genuine. This narrative existed long anterior to the birth of Christ, and
probably to the time of Homer ; nor have I the least doubt of its identity, previous to its adul
teration, with the Greek and Egyptian fables of Apollo and Horus. Every particular in it
palpably refers us to the era of the deluge. Sec Sir W. Jones's Dissert, in Asiat. Res. vol. i.
J>- 273.
CWAP' ,v-
284
wok it.
THE 01UG1N OF PAGAN IDOLATRY.
trja(j an(j existing in eight forms, then alone remains, floating in a state of
deep meditation or death-like sleep on the boundless ocean; and that, when
the deluge retires and a new world emerges from beneath the waves, he
awakes from his slumber, and manifests himself as the Menu of the renovated
system, the father first of three sons and afterwards through them of the
whole human race.
One might think, that so plain an account as this could scarcely be misap
prehended. The evident purport of it is, that the triplicated god of Hindostan is Noah at the head of his three sons viewed as the parent of the
present generation of men, and Adam similarly at the head of his three sons
viewed as the parent of the antediluvian race of mortals. Of these, the for
mer monail and triad is deemed a transmigratory reappearance of the latter
monad and triad : and, as the succession of worlds is fancifully maintained
to be endless, because one world has really been succeeded by another ; the
same monad and triad is exhibited, and the same events occur, at the com
mencement of each new system.
Such is the doctrine of the Hindoos ; which, so far as I can judge, contains
not the slightest allusion to the scriptural doctrine of the Trinity, but which
wholly relates to a succession of mere human triads each springing from a
vet anterior monad : and with their doctrine the history of their triplicated
god will be found exactly to correspond. When viewed as the three sons of
Noah or Menu-Satyavrata, who (we are literally told) was preserved with
seven companions in an ark at ihe time of the general deluge, Brahma,
Vishnou, and Siva, are declared to be Shama, Chaina, and Pra-Japati ;
and are each severally represented, as having floated on the surface of the
waters, either in a ship, or in certain vehicles which are positively asserted
to be symbols of that ship. But, when viewed as the three sons of Adam or
Adima or Menu-Swayambhuva, the same three deities appear at the com
mencement of the antediluvian world with every characteristic of Abel, Cain,
and Seth. One of them murders his brother at a solemn sacrifice, and is
doomed to be a wanderer upon the face of the earth. In consequence of this
event, the first race of men is described as springing only from two brethren;
the third, although fabled to be half restored to life, being so debilitated as
to be incapable of producing children, until he appears again in renovated

vigour at the beginning of the present mundane system.
285
On the whole,
nothing can well be less ambiguous than the origination of the Brahmenical
triad : and I cannot hut lament, that learned and ingenious men should have
advocated the groundless conceit of its having sprung from a corrupted
primeval tradition of the Holy Trinity.
VIII. The Hindoo triad of Brahma, Vishnou, and Siva, is, I am per
suaded, fundamentally the same as the classical triad of Jupiter, Neptune,
and Pluto. I mean not to say, that every person of the one can be perfectly
identified with a corresponding person of the other, so that each shall distinctly
answer to each : but the three classical gods melt into one another just in the
same manner as the three Hindoo deities ; and, notwithstanding some va
rieties, the general resemblance between the two triads is such, as to warrant
the belief of their having originated from a common source.
Jupiter, Neptune, and Pluto, when viewed conjointly as the three sons of
Saturn ; and Brahma, Vishnou, and Siva, when viewed conjointly as the
three emanations from Brahm or as the three sons of Menu ; are certainly
the triple offspring of the great transmigrating universal father of gods and
men, by whom the Gentiles meant Adam reappearing in the person of Noah.
Yet, by a species of genealogical confusion which pervades the whole of
ancient mythology, the three are deemed mutually the same both with each
other and with the parent from whom they sprang ; for, as the whole human
race may be resolved genethliacally into the triad, so the triad ultimately re
solves itself into the monad whence all mankind derived their common origin.
In this point of view therefore, the three, when beheld separately, are alike
the great father; and, as such, are considered as being essentially but one
character, acting as it were in the three different capacities of the renovator,
the preserver, and the destroyer, of the eternally mutable Universe. The
ancient pagan sages delighted to express themselves mysteriously, and thus
to throw a shade of awful obscurity over the simplest matters.
Instead of
merely saying that their principal hero-god was the father of three sons, they
were wont to speak of him as a being who had wonderfully triplicated himself.
Thus triplicated, he had three forms ; which yet were esteemed, as being
fundamentally but one deity. Hence we sometimes have an account of only
a single god springing from the egg, which during the space of a year was
286"
THE ORIOTN OF PAGAN IDOLATRY.
tempe9t-tossed on the surface of the ocean : while, at other times, we are

told of three gods being born out of the same egg. In the midst however of
this studied darkness, the truth is still sufficiently apparent : for the veil of
mystery is occasionally dropt ; and we are explicitly told by the interpreting
hierophant, that the self-triplicating deity means only the primeval ancestor
of all mankind, who at the commencement of every world is always the
father of three sons.
The Hindoos have retained both the mystical and the
literal mode of expression : the Greeks, discarding the former, have used
only the latter. Hence we hear nothing of any self-triplication of Saturn :
we are simply told, that he was the father of three sons, among whom he
divided the whole world. This circumstance is highly useful in leading us to
a right understanding of the Hindoo triad : for, as the three classical gods
are certainly the same as the three Hindoo gods, the mysterious self-tripli
cation of Brahm is nothing more at the bottom than the birth of three sons
from Saturn. And accordingly the Brahmenical divines themselves tell us,
that the self-triplicating Brahm is really no other than Menu viewed as the
parent of a triple offspring, from whom after every deluge all mankind are
descended.
1. The character of Jupiter is evidently not that of a single individual :
but a more ancient and a less ancient god of that name is spoken of, just as
we meet with a more ancient and a less ancient Menu or Buddha. This
arose from the universally prevalent doctrine of trans migratory reappearances:
and I think it clear, that Jupiter, when thus considered, is at once the great
father who is manifested at the commencement of every world, and a member
of that triad of sons which is successively born from him.
As the former, he
is Adam reviving in the person of Noah : as the latter, he is apparently the

same as Ham; for he was worshipped by the Egyptians, themselves of the
line of that patriarch, under the appellation of Hammon, and was thought to
have mutilated his father Saturn after first intoxicating him with honeymead. 1 The most ancient Jupiter is mentioned by Diodorus, as anterior to
the other in time, though surpassed by hiin in point of celebrity : and he is
the same person as Cronus or Saturn ; who is himself said to have been de
throned, and whose glory was eclipsed by his offspring the younger or Ham-.
1 Orph. apud Porph. de ant. nymph, p. 260.
287
moniaa Jupiter. Probably the fiction arose from the retired and devotional
habits of Noah, and from the more enterprizing temper of his son Ham and
his descendants, particularly those of the line of Cush : when Ham, in the
veneration of his posterity, usurped as it were the regal honours of his parent.
To this, if I mistake not, the old Chaldean oracles refer, when they speak,
agreeably to the notions respecting a mortal demiurge, of the great father
having created all things, and of having afterwards given them to the second
Nous whom the tribes of men agree to venerate as the first. * The elder
Nous, by whom the world was reproduced after the deluge, is he ; who was
said to be the parent of three younger Noes, who with them was born from a
floating egg, and who is declared to be the same as the arkite Dio-Nus or
Jupiter or Cronus : and the second Nous, to whom he resigned his sceptre,
is that younger Jove or Hammon, who is similarly represented as acquiring
the sovereignty of his father.
(1.) Diodorus informs us, that the first Jupiter was the king of the whole
world, though the Cretans pretended that their island was peculiarly the
place of his residence. He was the brother of Uranus and the husband of
Idea ; by whom he was the father of the Curetes, the Idei Dactyli, or the
Cabiri. He bestowed the name of his wife upon his favourite island, which
from her he ' called ld&a : and the same appellation, with a slight variety,
was applied to the sacred mountain of Crete.
Diodorus adds, that he died
in Crete, and that the ruins of his sepulchre might still be traced. 1
It is evident, that that part of the legend, which fixes this universal mun
dane sovereign in Crete, is a mere local appropriation. Crete was one of the
many sacred islands : and the religion of its inhabitants, originating at Babel,
was that, which was carried to every quarter of the globe by them of the
dispersion. When a branch of these colonists fixed themselves in Crete,
though they were conscious that the god whom they worshipped had really
been the king of the whole world, yet they made that island the peculiar seat
of their great father and of his consort the great Idean mother, just as their
brethren in all other parts of the earth similarly localized the same deities.
The Cretan Idea is the Phrygian Idea, for such was the name of Cybele
1 Orac. Zoroast. Fr. Patric. Pater et Mens.
1 Diod. Bibl. lib. iii. p. 194.
CHAP. iv.
288
Hook iv. n0 iesg than 0f this fabled consort of Jupiter ; just as the Cretan mount Ida
and the Phrygian mount Ida have received a common appellation from the
prevalence of the same theological notions. Both the goddess and the
mountain of these two countries, as well as the sacred mount Ida of Gothic
or Scythic superstition, may be traced to the Ida or Ila and the Ida-Vratta
or Ila-Vratta of the Hindoos and the Buddhic Chasas. The goddess was
the Ark : and the mountain was a copy of Ararat ; where the Ark rested,
and where in consequence the great father and mother were fabled to have
been born or exposed or educated. Hence originated the stories of Jupiter
having been once a boy, and of his having been nursed in the sacred Dictean
cave of mount Ida. * The birth of Noah from the Ark necessarily caused
him to be viewed in the light of a child : and a cave represented the World
and thence the Ark ; on which account the diluvian god was often thought to
have been born out of a cave or a rock, and the imitative aspirants in the
Mysteries were deemed to experience a new birth by issuing forth from the
door either of a stone cell or of a rocky grotto temple. *
The pretended nurses of Jupiter have all a similar respect to the deluge,
more or less obvious as being more or less literal or symbolical. Sometimes,
after his birth from Rhea or the great mother in the Dictean cave, he is said
to have been consigned to the care of the Curetes and the nymphs Adrastea
and Ida, the daughters of the Melissae ; and sometimes he is described as
having been nourished by bees. 5 This originated from the circumstance of
the arkite priestesses being called bees : for a hive was one of the many sa
cred symbols of the mundane Ship, and bees were thought to represent the
new-born souls in the Mysteries. The great mother herself was styled a bet :
and, in the Greek, the name of that animal is borrowed from Melissa or
Melitta the generative Venus of the Babylonian Cuthites, who was the same
as Ida or Ila.4 At other times, he was reported to have been nursed by a
sow, a she-goat, or she-bears :* because all those animals, like the cow, the
1 Cicer. de div. lib. ii. Gruter. Inscrip. lxxvi. n. 6, 7 .
* The subject of the mystic cave will be discussed hereafter at large, book v. c. 7. I. 2.
* Apollod. Bibl. lib. i. c. 1. $ 3. Virg. Georg. lib. iv. ver. 149. Lactan. Instit. lib. i. c. 22.
* Porph. de aut. nymph, p. 26 1, 262.
5 Agathoc. apud Athen. Deipnos. lib. ix. p. 375. Arat. Phsenom. p. 8, 23. Diod. Bibl.
lib. y. p. 337.

mare, and the ceto, were employed to typify the Ark.
So likewise, in allu
sion to the Noetic dove and to the priestesses who from it took the name of
doves, he is further said to have received his infant nourishment from birds of
that species, which carried ambrosia to the sacred Cretan grotto from the
mighty streams of the ocean. 1 We find a reference to this curious fable in
the Odyssey : and the scholiast remarkably and justly connects it with the
voyage of the Argo. He tells us, that the doves, when employed in carrying
ambrosia to Jove, flew between the tremendous Symplegades ; through which
the Argo was barely navigated in safety, and which had previously lopped
the tail of a dove that had been sent out of the ship by way of experiment*
Nor is this the only fable, in which we find doves introduced into the mythic
history of Jupiter.
In prosecuting an amour with Phthia he is said to have
changed himself into a dove, just as the Hindoo Siva and his consort Argha
assume the form of doves when the waters of the deluge begin to abate.'
As for the tomb of Jupiter, it was an edifice of the same nature, as the
tombs of Buddha, Argus, Osiris, and other cognate deities. Like the
pyramids of Egypt which were similarly esteemed sepulchres, and like the
montiform pagodas of Buddha within which he is feigned to be buried, it was
an arkite temple ; where Mysteries of a funereal description, such as the
rites of Baal-Peor and Osiris, were wont in old times to be celebrated.
That the edifice really existed and was shewn by the Cretans as a tomb, is
certain, both from the testimony of Diodorus, and from that of Callimachus,
Cicero, and Julius Firmicus, not to mention other writers :4 and, that I have
pointed out the real sense in which it was called a tomb, may, I think, be
not unequivocally collected from what the last- mentioned author says of the
tomb of Osiris. He intimates, that the mournful Orgies of that deity, in
which his death by the hand of Typhon was annually lamented, were cele
brated at his tomb which was still to be seen in Egypt. s Now, since the
1 Moero apud Athen. Dcipnos. lib. xi. p. 491.

* Horn. Odyss. lib. xii.vcr. 63. Schol. in loc.
3 Athen. Deipnos. lib. ix. p. 395.
* Callim. Hymn, in Jov. i. vcr. 8. Cicer. de nat.deor. lib. iii. c. 21. Jul. Firm, de error,
prof. rel. p. 19,
* Jul. Firm. p. 4, 5.
Pag. Idol.
vOL. II.
2 O
290
book iv.
rjtes Qf Osiris were thus connected with his tomb, and since those rites clearly
related to the deluge, the reason why the tomb was so called must be col
lected from the nature of the rites : and, since the tomb of Osiris was thus
connected with the diluvian Mysteries, and since the theology of Crete and
Egypt was fundamentally the same, it seems necessarily to follow from ana
logy that the tomb of Jupiter must be understood in the same manner.
Jupiter in fact was no other person than Adonis and Osiris ; and the tomb in
Crete was but a repetition of that in Egypt and Phenicia. Accordingly we
find, that at Argos the supposed death of Adonis was bewailed by the women
in the temple of Jupiter the Preserver ; so called, I apprehend, from the
wonderful preservation of the Noetic family in the Ark. 1
(2.) Though Jupiter is thus fabled to have been born and to have reigned
in Crete, he was equally the local god of many other countries : and we may
observe some curious traces of a close intercommunion among his worshippers.
The Cretans, as we have just seen, claimed Jupiter to themselves : and
they had a city in their island called Arcades.1, The Arcadians also put in
their claim to Jupiter : and they had a district in their country denominated
Cretia, through which flowed the river of Nous or Noah, where they assert
ed the god to have been born and not in the island of Crete. ' The Egyptians
equally laid claim to Jupiter, who was in reality the same as Osiris, making
him one of their ancient kings : and they had a city, to which they gave the
name of Arcadia.* So likewise, in reference to the agricultural character of
Noah, the Phenicians had their agricultural Jupiter who was the same as
Dagon or Cronus or Ilus : and we find in mount Lebanon a city called Area,
whence Astarte or the Phenician Venus, who was adored in conjunction with
Thammuz or Adonis, received the title of Architis ; we also find in the same
country a race of Crethim or Cretans (as the Seventy well express the name),
1 Paus. Corinth, p. 121. The subjectof tomb-worship will be resumed hereafter, b. v. c. 7 III.
1 Steph. Byzant. de urb. p. lG6.
3 Paus. Arcad. p. 517, 518. This river Nous was one of the many sacred western streams,
all of which, according to the Hindoos, received their names from the god Deo-Naush.
+ Diod. Bibl. lib. i. p. 12. Steph. Byzant. de urb. p. 167.
291
who with their brethren the Pelethim or Palli submitted to the rule of the
Israelites. 1
Some writers adopt, as a literal historical matter of fact, the account of
Jupiter being an ancient sovereign of Crete : but this seems to me alike con
trary to reason and evidence. It is incredible, that a petty Cretan prince
should at the same time be king of the whole world, and that he should be
venerated as the chief of gods in so many different countries : for it is well
known, that he was claimed as a local deity, not only by the Cretans, but by
the inhabitants of all those different regions where he was worshipped. To
say nothing of Arcadia, Egypt, and Pheuicia, which I have just mentioned,
Pausanias informs us, that it would be almost impossible to enumerate every
nation, which pretended that Jupiter was born within its particular territory. *
Why then should the claim of the Cretans ; the Cretans ever liars, as Callimachus calls them when speaking of this very claim urged from the exhibit
tion of the pretended tomb of the god-king : why should the claim of the
Cretans be specially allowed to the exclusion of the parallel claim of almost
every other people?'
The truth of the matter was this : wherever the arkite priests and nobility
with their idolatrous adherents were scattered from the tower of Babel, or
wherever they might migrate in subsequent age3, they carried along with
them traditions of the polyonymous great father, the ship Argo or Theba,
the mountain Ida or Meru, the Titans and Typhon, the sacred dove and the
deluge. These, though they equally concerned all mankind, the vanity of
each people, apparently warranted by local commemorative ordinances, con
stantly appropriated to their own country. Agreeably to such an opinion,
Jupiter was both thought to have been king of the whole world, though the
Cretans pretended that he fixed his seat of empire in their island; and was
likewise supposed to have travelled over every part of the earth, destroying
robbers and giants, and establishing just and equal laws.4 In this particular
1 Sanchon.apud Euseb. Praep. Evan. lib. i. c. 10. Joseph. Ant. Jud. lib. v. c. I. Joseph,
de bell. Jud. lib. vii. c. 24. Bochart. Chanaan. lib. i. c. 15. p. 422. Macrob. Saturn, lib. i,
c. 21.
1 Paus. Messen. p. 278.
3 Callim. Hymn, in Jov. i. ver. 8.
4 Diod. Bibl. lib. iii. p. 194. lib. v. p. 338,

vooK it.
he coincides with Hercules, Deo-Naush, Bacchus, Osiris, and Buddha :

nor is it without reason that he does so ; for these various deities, under
whatever superstition they may be arranged, are all equally and fundamentally
the same primeval universal sovereign, who reappearing after the flood became
the common parent of the second race of mankind.
(3.) Considered then as Noah, we find Jupiter both esteemed the father
of the three most ancient Cabiri, and himself also reckoned the first of the two
primitive Cabiri, Bacchus being associated with him as the younger.1 This
however is a mere reduplication, for Jupiter and Bacchus are the same per
son : and they seem to have been joined together in the Samothracian Orgies,
much in the same manner as Osiris and Horus are connected in the Mysteries
of Isis. Hence Jupiter bore the title of Sabazius as well as Bacchus : a
word, not derived from the Hebrew Sabaoth as some have imagined, but
from Siva or Seba which is a name of the Indian Iswara.*
That such is the real origin of the word, as I have already had occasion to
intimate, appears to me sufficiently evident from the manner in which it may
be traced to Greece. Cicero tells us, that the Sabazian Bacchus was a king
of Asia; by which was meant the large tract of country that the ancients
called India or Indian Ethiopia, for the Asiatic Bacchus was doubtless the
far-famed Indian Deo-Naush. J But, if Bacchus-Sabazius were an Indian
deity, then his foreign title Sabazius must be sought for among the Hindoos,
not surely among the Israelites. And, in this case, since the god BacchusSabazius is clearly the same as the god Bagis-Siva, I see not how we can
well avoid concluding, that the names Bacchus and Sabazius are respectively
the names Bagis and Siva.
The very same appellation was in use among
the Thracians, from whom the Greeks borrowed a large part of their theo
logy : for Macrobius tells us, that they venerated Bacchus under the name
* Schol. in Apoll. Argon, lib. i. vcr. 917.
* Valer.- Maxim. lib. i. c. 3. Diod. Bibl. lib. iv. p. 212. Orph. Hymn, xlvii. Etym. Magn.
2a/3a?ioj. The opinion, that Sabazius is derived from the Hebrew Sabaoth, appears to have
arisen, partly from the similarity of the words, and partly from the circumstance of the
Rabbins and some of the early heretics bestowing the name of Sabaoth upon an eastern demongod. What they hebraiaed into Sabaoth was, 1 believe, no other than the Indian Seba.
3 Cicer. de nat. deor. lib. iii. c. 23.
Q93
of Sebadius ; and all writers agree, that the words Sabazius, Sabizo, and
Saboi, are of barbaric origin.* Now the Thracians were a branch of the
Scuths ; whose grand settlement was on the northern frontier of India, who
are there known by the denomination of Chasas or Chusas or Indo-Scytha,
and who thence spread themselves into many different regions of the earth.
But, if the Greeks received the name Sabazius from the Thracians, since
they brought it from India into Europe, the word must obviously be of In
dian extraction.
As Jupiter and Bacchus each bore the title of Sabazius ; so there was a tra
dition, that each of them was preserved by Thetis from the rage of his inve
terate enemy.* By Thetis, the goddess of the ocean, was meant the Ark :
for Thetis was the same as Venus, Isis, Astarte, Derceto, Theba, or Argha.
(4.) Perhaps it is scarcely necessary to point out the coincidence between
the taurine form under which Jupiter is feigned to have carried off Europa,
and the white bull of Siva : because that animal was the symbol of the great
father in every part of the globe; and therefore, although 'the coincidence
may serve to prove the identity of Jupiter and Siva, it does not peculiarly
prove it, inasmuch as it equally proves the ultimate and fundamental identity
of Jupiter, Siva, Bacchus, Osiris, Molech, Baal, Mithras, and Hu. But
there is another point, which must by no means be omitted : since, from its
arbitrary nature, it is curiously decisive of the matter now under considera
tion ; and likewise serves to shew, that the three persons of the classical triad
melt into each other just in the same manner as the three persons of the
Hindoo triad.
The god Siva is represented with three eyes; doubtless, I
think, from the circumstance of his virtually containing within himself the
essence of the triple Indian divinity, whose three persons imperceptibly (as it
were) are blended in one. } Now there was a very ancient Jupiter, called
the native Jupiter of the Trojans ; who, according to Pausanias, was
similarly depicted with three eyes : whence he bore the title of Triophthalmus,
as Siva is for the same reason denominated Trilochan.
1 Macrob. Saturn, lib. i. c. 18. Etym. Magn. 1a.fia&<>S- Hesych. Lex. la/Safct*', 2a/3a&oj. Suid. Lex. 2a/3a?oj.
* Horn. Iliad, lib. i. ver. 394. Phurn. de nat. deor. c. 17. Heraclid. Pont. Alleg. Horn,
p. 437, 438. Nonni Dionys. lib. xx.
5 Asiat. lies. vol. i. p. 248.
2y4
The cause, assigned by the Greek writer for this mode of representation,
is highly worthy of notice ; and it certainly appears to be the true one. He
says, that three eyes were assigned to Jupiter on the following account. All
men agree, that Jupiter reigns in heaven : but he also reigns in Hades, and
is therefore the same as Pluto ; whence Homer speaks of the infernal Jupi
ter, whom he connects with Proserpine : he moreover reigns in the sea, and
is therefore the same as Neptune; whence Eschylus the son of Euphorion
calls the god who presides over the ocean by the name of Jupiter. Such
being the case, says Pausanias, the artist gave three eyes to the deity, by
way of shewing, that it is one and the same person, who is alike supreme in
those three great divisions of the world. *
In this conjecture, I have no doubt that he is right ; because the fact on
which it is built, namely that Jupiter, Neptune, and Pluto, melt into each other,
like Brahma, Vishnou, and Siva, is clear and indisputable.
The conjecture
also perfectly corresponds with the mode of symbolizing used by the Egyp
tians. They were wont, as we are told by Plutarch, to represent Osiris,
the sovereign lord of the world, under the hieroglyphic of an eye and a
sceptre.1 Hence, when the world was divided into three parts, and when
the great father was thought to have multiplied himself into three sons who
were yet esteemed only variations of one primeval Nous, the obvious mode
of representing the triplicated deity would be by the image of a sceptred
prince having three eyes. Agreeably to this mystic theocrasy, Pluto is called
the infernal Jupiter, and Jupiter himself is identified with Hades : and
again, while Jupiter is declared to be the primeval Nous, who (according to
the Platonic and Orphic theology) produced from himself three younger
Noes; he is yet represented, as presiding over the sea in the character of
Neptune. '
2. From the figurative mode, adopted in the Mysteries, of describing
the entrance of Noah into the Ark, and his subsequent egress to the light of
heaven, the chief deity of the Gentiles, as I have often had occasion to
Paus. Corinth, p. 129.
* Plut. de Isid. p. 354. Macrob. Saturn, lib. i. c. 21.
* Orph. Hymn. xvii. Orph. Fragm. apud Macrob. Saturn, lib. i. c. 18. Max. Tyr.
Dissert, xxix. p. 290. Cicer. de nat. deor. lib. Hi. c. 25. August, de civ. Dei. lib.iv. c. 11,
I
295
observe, was either esteemed an infernal god, or was thought to have de

scended into Hades and afterwards to have returned from it. Hence we
may conclude, that Pluto, or the Stygian Jupiter, is the great father while
mystically dead, or, in plain terms, while concealed within the ship of the
deluge ; and that the celestial Jupiter is the same person, when he returns
to light and life by quitting the place of his dark temporary confinement,
which the hierophant was wont to style his floatmg coffin. With this sup
position the whole character of Pluto will be found to agree.
(1.) The Cabiric gods, whose number is variously represented according to
the various lights in which they were viewed, are certainly the diluvian fa
mily, sometimes including and sometimes excluding the Ark itself. This
sufficiently appears from the whole of their fabulous history. Now the Cabiri of Samothrace are said by Mnaseas to have been called Axieros, Axiocersa, and Axiocersus ; and he severally identifies them with Ceres, Pro
serpine, and Pluto. To these he adds a fourth, whom he makes the mi
nister or officiating priest of the other three ; and applies to him the appella
tion of Casmilus, which is equivalent to the infernal Mercury.*
Pluto
therefore, being a Cabiric god, must as such be also a diluvidn god.
He is exhibited in the very same character by the mythologists of Hindostan : for I hesitate not to identify the classical Pluto with the Indian
Yama or infernal Siva. We are told, that in Patala or Hades resides the
sovereign queen of the serpents, by name Asyoruca. To Samudr or the
Ocean she bore a daughter, called Asyotcersha or Asyotcrishta ; who is
beautiful as the day, but who like a jewel remains concealed in the sea.
With these are associated Dharma-Rajah or the king of justice and his ser
vant Carmala or Cashmala. The former is the sovereign of the Pitris or
seven patriarchal spirits, and the prince of the infernal regions. He is also
called Atcersa, which is a word of the same import as Asyotcersa : and he
holds a court of justice, with certain kings for his assessors, to determine
the fate of the departed.*
Here we have obviously the prototypes of the Samothracian Cabiri, as
' Mnas. apud Scho], in Apoll. Argon, lib. i. ver.917.
1 Asiat. Ees. vol. v. p. 297299.
296
nook iv.
enumerated by Mnaseas : for Axieros or Ceres is Asyoruca or Asyorus :

Axiocersa or Proserpine is Asyotcersha the daughter of Asyoruca;
Axiocersus or Pluto is Atcersa or Asyotcersa ; and the ministering Casmilus
or infernal Mercury is Carmala or Cashmala. The classical Pluto then is
the Hindoo Dharma-Rajah : but Dharma-Rajah, the Sydyk of Sanchoniatho
and the just man of Moses, who is described as the sovereign of the seven
Pitris or Rishis, is palpably the same as Buddha or Menu, considered in his
character of the god of obsequies; for the identical seven personages, who
are the associates of the one, were the companions of the other when he was
preserved in the Ark : Pluto therefore, as an infernal god, is in fact on that
very account an arkite god.
Such being his character, we can entertain little doubt respecting the cha
racters of his two female companions. The mother and the daughter, like
Ceres and Proserpine, are one reduplicated person: and it is plainly enough
intimated to us, who that person is. The mother is the queen of Patala or
Hades : but the Hades of the ancient Mysteries was conjointly the interior
of the Ark and of the Earth ; whence the primeval character preserved in
the Ark is made an infernal god, the judge of the dead, and (in the mytho
logies both of Greece and Egypt and Hindostan) the ferrier of the souls of
the defunct over the sacred lake of hell in the ship Argha or Baris. So
again : the daughter is made the offspring of the Ocean, and is said to have
lain concealed like a jewel in the sea. This can only correspond with
mixed character of that goddess, who is a personification at once of
Earth and of the Ark : but any doubt on that point is removed by the
claration, that Asyotcersha is Rama-Devi or Lacshmi. Now Lacshmi,
the
the
de
the
consort of Vishnou, is one of the three forms of the triple Devi or Isi : and,
as the three jointly constitute but one goddess, she is in fact the same as
Parvati or Sita, who floated on the deluge in the form of the Argha and af
terwards changed herself into a dove. She therefore, who lay concealed in
the ocean and who is evidently the Cabiric Proserpine of Samothrace, is
no other than the ship Argha or the mundane Ark ; while Dharma-Rajah
is Menu, or Noah, or the god of the Ark.
Hence, in classical mythology, Pluto, as the great father, is feigned to be
the husband of Proserpine : and, since the astronomical symbol of the Ark
297
was the lunar crescent, Proserpine or Axiocersa, notwithstanding she is

said to have Iain concealed in the ocean and to have sailed over the deluge
as the ship Argha, is yet pronounced to be the same as Libera and the
Moon. This circumstance, when connected with the fable of Pluto's rape
of Proserpine, led Julius Firmicus to ridicule the mythology of the pagans
by asking : Who ever ravished the Moon? Who at any time concealed her ?
Who ever made her the wife of the god of hell? 1 Such questions were not
unnaturally put by one, who supposed the literal Moon to be intended: but
what the initiated meant was that primeval ship, of which the boat-like
crescent in the heavens was the astronomical representative.
The rape of Proserpine, and the mournful search for her by Ceres over
the whole world, is but the converse of the descent of Osiris into Hades and
of the similar search made for him by Isis. Ceres and Isis were one person,
the same as the Indian Sree or Isi or Devi ; and their Mysteries related to
the same event, the temporary aphanism of the mundane arkite god and
goddess and their subsequent reappearance. The scene of the rape is com
monly laid in Sicily near the city of Fjwa : and a sacred lake was shewn
there, into which Pluto was thought to have plunged when he carried his
blooming prize down to the infernal regions.* This was in exact accord
ance with the notions of the old mythologists, among whom lakes were es
teemed symbols of the deluge ; while small islands, sometimes natural and
sometimes artificially made to float, were deemed apt representations of the
Earth and the Ark. The Orphic poet however alludes to the story with a
curious variation ; curious, both because it points out w hat we are to un
derstand by the lake, and connects the Sicilian goddess with the Eleusinian
worship of Ceres. He describes Pluto as bearing away Proserpine in his
chariot over the sea, as conveying her to Eleusis in Attica, and as there car
rying her down to the infernal regions through a sacred cave.' The purport
of the two accounts is precisely the same, though the mode of relating them
is somewhat different. The sea in the latter supplies the place of the lake in
the former : but both by the sea and the lake the deluge is equally meant, on
1 Jul. Firm, fie error, prof. rel. p. 19.
1 Jul. Firm, de error, p. 17. Ovid. Metam. lib. v. ver. 385437".
1 Orph. Hymn. xvii.
Pag. Idol.
vol. 11.
2P
298
book iv. fljg surfaCe of which the arkite god and goddess floated in mysterious union.
So likewise, in the latter, the place of descent is Eleusis, and the mode of
descent is through a cave ; while, in the former, the scene is laid at Enna,
and the god is sometimes thought to have descended through the lake, and
sometimes through a chasm in the earth which he himself made when he
found that he was opposed by the river-nymph Cyane.
The fact was, that
the same worship prevailed both in Sicily and Attica. The cave where a
road to Hades was shewn, and the chasm through which Pluto was feigned
to have descended, were equally sacred grottos devoted to the celebration
of the Mysteries. They represented the gloomy interior of the Earth and
of the Ark ; the Hades of old mythology, whence the great father was sup
posed to have been born or to have returned to light from the nether world.
(2.) As Pluto or the infernal Jupiter is Noah during the period of his
aphanism or inclosure within the Ark, and as the kingdom over which he
presides is the mundane Ark itself, we shall find almost every particular re
lative to the pagan Hades borrowed from the history of the deluge.
The door of hell, which was shewn at the entrance of every Mithratic ca
vern, and through which the aspirants were variously said to be born again
or to return from the infernal regions, was no other than the door of the
Ark; a conclusion, which necessarily follows from Pluto, like the infernal
Menu or Yama of the Hindoos, being the god of the Ark. The three
judges of hell, who are described as the assessors of Pluto, are the triple
offspring of Noah with the patriarch himself at their head. One of them
accordingly is feigned to be the Minos of Crete : but there can scarcely be
a doubt, that this ancient personage is the same as the Menu of Hindostan,
the Manes or Menes of Phrygia and Egypt, the Minuas of Greece, the
Menu or Menwyd of Britain, and the Mannus of the Goths or Scythians.
So again : the infernal river Styx is the deluge ; and it was viewed precisely
in the same light by the Greeks, as the Nile was by the Egyptians, and as
the Ganges is by the Hindoos. Each of those celebrated streams is a river
of Hades or Patala ; and each has its sacred boat and ferryman of the dead,
who is evidently the prototype of the classical Charon, but who is no less
evidently the scriptural Noah floating in the Ark. Thus Buddha or Menu,
under the name of Salivakana and Naravahana, is described as the con
299
veyer of souls in the larger boat over the river of hell : and, since the Hin
doo infernal river is the Ganges, that sacred stream must be the water on
which he exercises his imaginary occupation.1 But this Menu is the very
person, who was preserved in an ark with seven companions at the time of
the deluge : and he doubtless discharges his function of ferryman of the dead
in his character of Sraddadeva or the god of obsequies. Thus also the
Egyptian Charon was similarly thought to ferry the souls of the deceased
over the Acherusian pool, which was formed by the overflowing of the Nile.
The vessel, which he employed for this purpose, was no other than the Baris or Argo; and the Nile was esteemed by the Egyptians a type of the ocean
or deluge. But the Baris or Argo was the ship of Osiris, in which he was
set afloat on the river during the period of his allegorical death : and his en
trance into that vessel, which was formed like a lunette, and which was
symbolized by the heifer Isis called Thcba or the Ark, was his fabled de
scent into the infernal regions.1
Charon therefore is the same person as
Osiris, just as the Hindoo ferryman is Menu or Buddha : in other words,

he is Pluto or the diluvian Noah, considered in his infernal character of the
god of obsequies.
(3.) The allegorical death of the patriarch was sometimes styled his
aphanism or disappearance : he was first bewailed as one lost, and after
wards rejoiced over as being found again. On this idea the Greeks seem
to have constructed the fable of Pluto's wonderful helmet, which under dif
ferent modifications has been adopted into so many romances and fairy
tales ; for that god was undoubtedly and avowedly the same person as the
Osiris or Serapis of Egypt. They tell us, that, at the epoch of the Ti
tanic war or (in other words) of the general deluge, the Cyclopes forged a
helmet for Pluto, which possessed the faculty of rendering its wearer in
visible.
Heraclitus reasonably enough remarks, that this helmet is death, after
which a man is no longer seen by his kindred. His observation is just in
* Aiat. Res. vol. ix. p. 173. Raraayun. b. i. sect. 5. When the Manicheans strangely
fancied Christ to have been an incarnation of Buddha or Manes, they applied to him the same
title and character,
* Diod. Bibl. lib. i. p. 82, 83, 86, 87.
300
book iv.

main : but the death or disappearance denoted by the helmet, as may
be collected from the whole mythological history of the Cabiric Pluto, was
the mystic death or aphanism of Osiris when he was shut up in the ark ;
and the helmet itself, if I mistake not, like the cup and the sacred shield,
was a symbol of that vessel which produced the fabled invisibility.1
(4.) Such being the apparatus and import of the pagan Hades, we shall
not wonder to find the character of Proserpine perfectly harmonizing with
what has been said respecting Pluto, the three infernal judges, Charon, his
ship Baris or Argo, and the sacred stream whether denominated Styx or
Nile or Ganges.
The Orphic poet speaks of her, as being at once the life and the death
of mortals ; and celebrates her, as being the mother, by an ineffable inter
course with Jupiter, of Eubuleus or Bacchus, who is said to have been in
his infancy exposed in an ark on the surface of the sea.* Homer represents
her, as sporting with the daughters of the Ocean ; just as the Hindoo my
thologists tell us, that she was the daughter of the Ocean ; and that she
lay concealed within its recesses.' And Porphyry, while he identifies her
with Maia or the great mother whom the "Hindoos make the parent of the
diluvian Buddha or Menu, remarks, that the dove or wood-pigeon was sa
cred to her, and that she received the name of Pherephatta from the cir
cumstance of her feeding that sacred bird.4 This fable is of a common origin
with the Indian tale, which describes the great mother as assuming the form
of the Argha during the prevalence of the deluge, and as afterwards flying
away in the shape of a dove while the waters were retiring.
(5.) Pluto was the Muth of the Phenicians and the infernal great fa
ther of the ancient Celts, whom they claimed as their progenitor, and upon
whom Cesar bestows the name of Dis ; though perhaps we ought rather to
say, that they themselves designated him by this appellation, which is no
other than the Hindoo or Indo-Scythic Deva, Deus, or Deo.5
* Apollod. Bibl. lib. i. c. 2. l. Herac.de Incred. c. xxvii.
* Orph. Hymn, xxviii. xxix.
3 Homer. Hymn, in Cerer. apud Paus. Messen. p. 273.
* Porphyr. de Abstin. lib. iv. l6.
5 This I infer from the circumstance of one of the sacred rivers of the British Celts being
301
The word Muth signifies Death : and the person, who bore the title, is
said by Sanchoniatho to have been the son of Cronus by Rhea, and is pro
nounced by his translator Philo to be the same as Pluto. I am greatly mis
taken, if this Muth be not the same also as the Mot mentioned at the be
ginning of the Phenician history, in which the process of the original crea
tion of the world and its renovation after the deluge are mingled together in
the usual manner of the old mythologists. Mot is described, as the chaotic
mixture produced by the union of the primeval Cupid with the wind Kolpias. Now, according to the system of ancient Materialism by which the
various parts of universal nature were esteemed but the different members of
the great father, the original Chaos was accounted the same as that oldest of
deities, or, in the language of the Hindoos, it was one of his forms. Thus
Osiris was confounded with his adversary Typhon or the ocean : and thus
Janus, who is certainly the same as Noah, is introduced by Ovid declaring
himself to be the primitive Chaos out of which the world was framed. Si
milar ideas appear to have been entertained by the Phenicians : for, after the
various conjectures that have been made respecting the import of the word
Mot, I think it most agreeable to the genius of old mythology, which es
teemed the original Chaos and the diluvian or infernal god the same, to con
clude, that the names Mot and Muth are also the same. The Celts of
Britain esteemed Ceridwen or the great navicular mother the goddess of
death ; consequently, like their brethren of Gaul, they must have venerated
the great father as Death personified.1 The Celts of Gades, in a similar
manner, worshipped a god, whom Philostratus calls Death : and the
Hindoos, as we have already seen, equally venerated their egg-born divinity
under the same appellation. This Gadetanic Death is evidently the Dis
and the Muth mentioned by Cesar and Sanchoniatho. His rites, like those
of the infernal Baal-Peor before whom the Israelites eat the offerings of
the dead, appear to have been mingled with obscenity ;* a circumstance,
systematically universal throughout the gentile world, and arising from the
called Dee or Deva in honour of the great mother and from Hu himself being styled Deo.
See Davies's Mythol. of Brii. Druid, p. 152, 153, 119, 121.
' Davies's Myth, p. 231.
1 They were the oligin, 1 suspect, of the Spanish dance Fandango.
mMf- ,v.
302
notion entertained of Noah and the Ark being the two presidents of gener
ation. The old Etruscans called this god Mantus ; which is but a compound
variation of the Menu, Manes, and Mannus, of the Hindoos, Egyptians, and
Goths : for Mantus is equivalent to the god Manu. He was the infernal
Pluto, and at the same time the diluvian Menu in his character of the god
of obsequies.1
3. Pluto, driving Proserpine in his chariot over the sea, melts into the
character of the oceanic god Neptune, as Neptune again melts similarly into
that of the marine Jupiter : and the fabulous regent of the sea is still the
great father, specially viewed as floating on the surface of the mighty deep.
Hence we find him throughout closely connected with the deluge.
(1.) He is said to have brought a flood over Attica at the time when the
mystic olive-branch was produced : and he is denominated by Hesiod the
tauric god and celebrated as the peculiar defender of Theba or the Ark.1
He is also feigned to have shut up the Titans or impious antediluvians in the
central cavity of the earth, surrounding them on all sides with the ocean ;
to have overwhelmed the island and the whole wicked race of the Phlegyae
beneath the waves of the sea ; to have been the first mariner that ever trusted
himself to the boundless deep ; to have brought a flood over the land of
Ethiopia together with a ceto, which is a well-known symbol of the Ark ; to
have similarly inundated, and similarly sent a ceto into, the territories of
the Iliensians ; and to have assumed the various symbolical arkite forms of a
horse, a dolphin, and a bull.'
In the first of these forms he had intercourse with Ceres, while in search
of her daughter Proserpine. The reluctant goddess, vainly wishing to escape
from him, changed herself into a mare : and, afterwards beholding her new
form in the Arcadian fountain of Styx, near which this amour was carried
* Sanction, apud Euseb. Praep. Evan, lib, i. c. 10. Cass, de bell. Gall. lib. vi. c. 18. Ovid.
Fast. lib. i. ver. 103. Bochart. Chanaan. lib. i. c. 33. p. 584. c. 34. p. 6"09, 6lQ. Jib. ii,
c. 2. p. 711. Asiat. Res. vol.viii. p. 439,440. Philost. in vit. ApoUon. p. 211.
* Apollod. Bibl. lib. iii. c. 13. Hesiod. Scut. Here. ver. 104.
* Hesiod. Theog. ver. 811819. Nonni Dionys. lib. xviii. Diod. Bibl. lib. v. p. 337.
Apollod. Bibl. lib, ii. c.3, 3. c. 4. 9. Ovid. Metam. lib. vi. ver. 118, 120, 115.
303
On, she in disgust miraculously tinged the water with black.1 Apollodorus
says, that she received the embraces of Neptune in the shape of an Erinnys
or Fury : but there is no real discrepance between the two accounts, which
ought in fact to be joined together in one fable.* Ceres-Hippa was the nurse
of Bacchus, and was certainly the goddess of the Ark. She was the great
mother in the form of a mare, while Neptune was the great father in the
form of a horse. In this particular she coincides with the Hindoo Devi or
Parvati, one of whose numerous figures was a mare, though she also floated
as a ship on the surface of the deluge.' But, viewed as a fiend-mare, she
coincides yet more remarkably with Ceridwen, the Ceres' of the ancient Bri
tons ; who, like herself, is evidently the same as the Sree or Devi of the
Hindoos. One of the forms of Ceridwen was a mare, or rather a monstrous
animal compounded of a mare and a hen : yet she was supposed to have
been likewise a ship well stored with corn, in which an ancient personage was
preserved during the period of a great inundation. In the first of these
shapes, she was esteemed a fiend-mare and an infernal mare : and thus she
exactly corresponds with the classical Ceres, who is indifferently feigned to
have received the embraces of Neptune as a mare and as a fury; for let the
two be united, and we have the British fiend-mare Ceridwen.4
(2.) As the consort of Ceres and therefore as the great diluvian father,
Neptune is said to have been plunged in his infancy beneath the waves of
the sea : and much the same story is from him transferred to his son Eumolpus.
This person was the offspring of the oceanic god by Chione ; who, to
avoid detection by her father, threw the child, as soon as he was born,
into the sea. Neptune however preserved him from destruction : and,
bearing him safely away to Ethiopia, committed him to the nurture of Benthesicyna and Amphitrite.5
It is easy to perceive, whence these kindred fables have originated. I
Ptol. Heph. Nov. Hist. lib. iii.
w 1 Apollod. Bibl. lib. iii. c. 6.
3 Asiat. Res. vol. iii. p. 168. vol. viii. p. 441.
4 Davies's Mythol. p. 229, 26"0, 256.
* Hyg. Fab. 139. Apollod. Bibl. lib. iii. c. 14. } 4.
0HAP. tv-
304
Hook iv.
need only observe, that the latter, like many other of the Greek legends, is
connected with Ethiopia or Cusha-dwip ; which, whether African or Asiatic,
was a principal settlement of the daring tribe that appears to have been the
grand corrupter of religion after the deluge.
IX. The assertion of Artemidorus and Dionysius, that Ceres and Pro
serpine and Bacchus were worshipped by the Celts of Britain with rites
similar to those of Samothrace, has been most amply confirmed by a recent
inquiry into the theological system of the British Druids, instituted from
original native documents with equal learning and ingenuity.1 It thence
appears, that their Orgies had just the same relation to the deluge as those of
the Samothracians, and that they worshipped a triad consisting of the god
Hu and the two goddesses Ceridwen and Creirwy ; who, like the classical
Ceres and Proserpine, were viewed as a mother and a daughter. Now the
character of Hu is thus generally summed up by Mr. Davies from those my
thological compositions of the bards, which are denominated triads : and,
like that of Osiris or Bacchus or Siva, it is palpably the character of
Noah.
He lived in the time of the flood : and with his oxen he performed some
achievement, which prevented the repetition of that calamity. He was
doubly symbolized by a bull and by a serpent. He first collected together
the primitive race ; and formed them into communities or families. He first
gave traditional laws for the regulation and government of society. He was
eminently distinguished for his regard to peace and justice. He conducted
the several families of the first race to their respective settlements in the va
rious regions of the earth.
But he had instructed this race in the art of hus
bandry previous to their removal and separation.1

With this character of Hu, every thing that is said of him will be found
exactly to correspond.
He was called the mighty, the sovereign, the ready protector, the giver
of wine, the emperor of the land and the seas, the life of all that are in
the world. He was said to have held after the deluge the strong-beamed
plough. He was denominated Dylan, the son of the sea. He was thought
Artemid. apud Strab. Geog. lib. iv. p. 198. Dion. Perieg. ver. 565.
* Mythol.of Brit. Druid, p. 106, 107, 136, S6l, 562.

to have sailed in a wonderful ship, when the floods came forth from heaven
to the great deep. His peculiar day was styled a day of ve?igeance: and the
reason assigned for its being so styled is, that it was a day rendered dreadful
by the violently convulsive throes of all nature, when with thundering din
the billows forth proceeded against the shore. He was called Dwyvan or
the lofty cause, as the name of his mystic consort was Dwyvach or the lesser
cause : and in these characters, which are evidently those of the great father
and mother, they were supposed to have been saved in a ship without sails,
when the waters of lake Llion inundated the whole world. He was repre
sented, under the title of Noe, as presiding with his consort Eseye or Isi in
that stupendous temple, which is indifferently called the great stonefence of
their common sanctuary, tlie Ark of the World, the circle of the World,
the mundane circle of stones, the mound constructed of stone-work typifying
the World, the mundane rampart, the stall of the caw.1 As venerated in this
bovine stall, he was denominated Becr-Lled or the bull offlame ; that is to
say, the solar bull or the greatfather worshipped in the Sun.x With a simi
lar reference to his tauric character, he is described as sayings Twas subjected
to the yokefor my affliction, but commensurate was my confidence ; the World
had no existence, were it not for my progeny: and, in allusion to an attri
bute specially ascribed by Moses to Noah, an ancient bard apostrophizes
him, The heavy blue chain didst thou, O just man, endure ; and for the
spoils of the deep doleful is thy song.1
But the circle of stones was not the only temple of Hu : as both that cir
cle, and an island in the sea or in a lake, equally symbolized the World and
the Ark ; so his sanctuary is said to have been in an island surrounded by the
tide, or on a wide lake, or on the surface of the ocean, or on the ninth wave,
or on a rock beyond the billow, described as the rock of the supreme pro' Ibid. p. 100, 101, 104, 108, 109, 113, 114, 131, 562, 568.
* Mytbol. ef Brit. Druid, p. 120, 137- Mr. Davies observes, that this title has no mean
ing in the British language: but he conjectures from the context, that it has been compounded,
at a very remote period, of two Babylonic words Beer and Let, which import the bull ufflame.
I have retained his explanation: yet Btcr-Llad may gerhaps rather denote the generative bull.
* Ibid. p. 137.
Pag. Idol.
vol. ii.
fi Q
OHAP' **,
306 .
THI", ORIGIN OF PAGAN IDOLATRY.
prietor and as the chief place of tranquillity.' Here he dwells secure, having
the rainbow for his girdle, and presiding over the ship with the iron door
which once toiled to the summit of a lofty mountain.*
In reference to the same primeval vessel so particularly described by Moses,
he is further celebrated as the door-keeper of the partial covering, as the god
of the door or gate, as a protector in darkness, and as the defender of his sea
girt sanctuary.' He is also represented as a ploughman or husbandman; as
a reaper; as the sacrificer of the mystic cow after the deluge; and, though astronomically revered in the Sun, as being able to protect his chair of pre
sidency in the midst of a general flood. He was likewise the conqueror of the
giants or antediluvian Titans ; who are similarly overcome by Bacchus, Siva,
Osiris, and Jupiter : and we are told, that, after he had been patient in
affliction, he became the father of all the tribes of the earth.4
Sometimes this tauric and ophite deity is described, as seated on the covered
mount which shadowed out mount Ararat, and as refulgent with expanded
wings. 5 Here he is evidently the same character as the primeval Eros or
Cupid, as the Orphic winged and ox-headed first-born Dionusus, and as the
winged serpent Cneph of the Egyptian theologySometimes he is styled On
or Deon, which is equivalent to the divine On.6 Here again we may ob
serve the close connection of the British mythology with that of Egypt and
Hindostan : for On was the Egyptian name of the Sun, or rather of the
great father venerated in the Sun ; and it is clearly the same title as the Hin
doo Om or Awm, which is called the sacred triliteral monosyllable, and which
is a special appellation of the solar Trimurti Brahma Vishnou Siva Some
times he was supposed to have had two origins or births.7 Here likewise we.
may trace his clear identity with the Orphic Bacchus or Protogonus ; who,
as the son of the Ark, is said to have been born a second time from the womb
of his nurse Hippa or Ceres.
Lastly, as was almost universally the case with the great father in every
quarter of the globe, he was venerated as an infernal deity, and was thought
1
1
4
*
Mythol. of Brit. Druid, p. 120, 507, 508, .509, 537.

Ibid. p. 120.
1 Ibid. p. 199, 200, 120.
Ibid. p. 120, 121, 122.
5 Ibid. p. 5l, 562.
Ibid. p. 526531, 562.
7 Ibid. p. 528.

to have lived and died alternately.
307
In sustaining this part of his character, he ct,A,'. ,T-
bore the ivy-branch in the person of his representative priest ; agreeably to the
accurate assertion of Dionysius, that the Britons covered themselves with leaves
of that plant while celebrating the rites of their national Bacchus : and he was
designated by the appellation Aedd or Aeddon; which was likewise assumed
by his officiating minister, and which is evidently the same title as Adoneus
or Adonis. 1 Yet, while revered as an infernal deity, he is still described
under the name of Aeddon in such a manner, that we can as little mistake
his real character as that of the diluvian Menu whom the Hindoos make the
god of obsequies. The Ark is expressly said by Taliesin to have been the
ship of Aeddon : he is celebrated as having entered into the inclosure of the
strong door, what time the elements were let loose and his contemporaries
perished : and he is described as the chief of the toiling just ones, who long
dwelt on a sea which had no shore, and of whose integrity it was that they
did not endure the extremity of distress.*
X. The same system of theology prevailed throughout the continent of
America at the time of its first discovery by the Europeans : and there appear
to have been some relics of it in the back settlements to a very late period, if
indeed it be even yet altogether extinct. The universal traditions of the
Americans themselves, corroborated by recent geographical discoveries,
seem to establish the position, that their ancestors crossed the narrow chan
nel which separates Asia from the new world, and thus gradually spread
themselves over a country long unknown in the west.1 But the religion, to
which they had been devoted while inhabiting the Asiatic continent, they
would doubtless bring with them into their recently acquired settlements.
And this circumstance, which might have been anticipated from the very
course of their emigration, is clearly established by a reference to facts.
1 . Mr. Adair, who long resided among the natives that occupy the districts
behind the United States, imagines, that they are descendants of the longlost ten tribes of Israel. I cannot help suspecting however, that his curious
narrative has been heightened by the love of a system perhaps too hastily
' Mythol. of Brit. Druid, p. 122, 259, 574.
1 Ibid. p. 118, 554, 555, 557,
3 Robertson's Hist, of Amcr. b. iv. sect. 8. p. 41, 42, 43.
308
K ,y.
THE ORIGIN OF PAGAN IDOLATRY
adopted ; and that to a mind preoccupied with the idea, that they must be
Israelites because their priests carried about a small ark, every rite and cus
tom prevalent among them served to bring . additional conviction. They
had, it seems, a consecrated ark, in which they kept various holy vessels.
This ark the priests were wont to bear in solemn processions. They never
placed it on the ground : but, where stones were to be had, they rested it
upon them; where they were not to be had, upon short logs of wood.
They entertained an implicit faith in the power and holiness of their ark : and
they esteemed it so sacred, that no one presumed to touch it except the
chieftain and his attendant, and they only on very particular occasions.
The deity of this ark they invocated by the name of Yo-He-Wah ; which
Mr. Adair supposes to be a slight variation of the Jehovah of the Hebrews*
while he pronounces the ark to be a transcript of the ark of the covenant.1
Such a conjecture would be highly probable, were the Israelites the only
people upon record, whose priests were accustomed to bear a sacred ark in
solemn procession : but, so far is this from being the case, that the rite pre
vailed in every part of the gentile world, originating no doubt from a strong
tradition of the Ark and the deluge. Hence I feel thoroughly persuaded,
that the ark of these Americans %vas no other than the ark of Siva, Osiris,
Ammon, Adonis, Bacchus, Attis, Hu, and Menu; and that their theology,
so far from being a corruption of the Mosaical Institutes, was in reality that
very Diluvianism which constituted so large a part of the religion of the pagans.
It must be confessed, that Yo-He-Wah, as Mr. Adair writes the title of the
ark-god, bears a considerable resemblance to the name Jehovah : but I more
than suspect, that he has combined into one word what ought to be consi
dered as two distinct invocations. Purchas, giving an account from Champlain of the same American region, tells us, that, when the inhabitants, were
celebrating their sacred rites, all the females present stripped themselves
naked, and in this condition joined in a frantic song and dance. When they
had finished, they exclaimed with one voice, Ho, Ho, Ho ; and then resumed
their garments.
After a while they again cast them aside, again performed
1 See a work intitled The History of the America* Indians, by James Adairy Esq. a trader
with the Indians and resident in the countryfor 40 years.
TflE ORIGIN OF PAGAN IDOLATRY.

the dance and the song, and again joined in the same exclamation.
309
He
adds, that the young women of the country, when they attained the age of
fourteen or fifteen years, prostituted themselves to whomsoever they pleased;
and that they followed this course of life for the space of five or six years,
when they entered into the matrimonial state. With respect to their theology,
they venerated one god, one son, and one mother; and these they associated
with the Sun, thus making their deities four in number. The first of them they
also styled the father: and they had a notion, that their goddess, whom
they eminently called the mother, once devoured or swallowed up both her
offspring and the Sun. 1
In this narrative Mr. Adair would doubtless have discovered the Trinity ;
and would have pronounced the god, denominated the son, to be the Mimra
or filial Word of the ancient Targumists: yet it distinctly enough sets
forth to us nothing more than the religious notions and practices of the old
pagans, and thus confirms the supposition that the sacred ark was the ark of
Bacchus or Osiris. The deity, whom these Americans venerated, waa
called Ho; and they thFice invoked him in allusion to that mystic triplication
so highly celebrated by the gentile hierophants. He is the same, even in title,
as the Hu of the Britons and the Huas of the Greeks ; and the name Ho is
evidently what Mr. Adair writes Yo. This then, as we collect from Champlain, is the title of the god : but the natives, it appears, used also another
exclamation, which Mr. Adair expresses dividedly He-JVah. I am inclined
to believe, that, as Ho is Hu or Bacchus, so we have here no other than the
Bacchic cry of Hevah or Evo'e; and consequently that the exclamation YoHe-Wah, which is thought to be a corruption of Jehovah, is in fact nothing
more than Ho-Hevak, which is equivalent to Huas Evo'e or inversely Evo'e
Bacche. With such an opinion the indecent rites of the god exactly corre
spond. The songs and dances of the naked women are the songs and dances
of the Bacchantes and priestesses of Flora; their denudation corresponds
with the similar religious denudation of the Egyptian females, before the bull
Apis, and at the festival of Bubaste who was the same as Isis. or the Ark ;
and their prostitution was probably much of the same nature, as that of the
.,
* Purch. rijgr. o, yiii.. c. 4*. p. 7&, 75,1-
CHAP, i v.
3IO
Babylonian women in honour of Mylitta, of the Armenian in honour of Anai's,

of the Cyprian and Lydian in honour of Venus, and of the Canaanitish in
honour of Baal-Peor. 1 These rites, in short, are very evidently the phallic
rites, which were always associated with the arkite worship, and which were
the universal disgrace of the licentious theology of the Gentiles. As for the ark,
which no one might touch save the chieftain or his deputy, it is clearly, I think,
the Bacchic ark ; which contained the symbols of the god and his worship, and
which none might open with safety except the initiated. This ark I suppose
to have been here, as elsewhere, the token and shrine of the goddess ; whom,
like all the other pagans, they emphatically called the mother or the great
mother. She is associated with two other deities, who bear to each other
the relation of father and son. Of an exactly similar description was the
Egyptian triad, composed of Isis the great mother, Osiris the father, and
Horus the sun. Such also was the Gothic triad, consisting of Frea the mo
ther, Woden the father, and Thor the son. And nearly allied to it is one
of the oriental triads, which comprehends Subhadra the great mother, and
Jagan-Nath and Bal-Rama two brethren. They have all, I believe, originated
from the same source. The number three is taken from the number of the
sons of the transmigrating great father : but the triad itself is made up of the
mundane arkite great mother, and the great father considered with reference
to two different periods of his life, during the former of which he appears as
the consort and during the latter as the offspring of the maternal goddess.
With the worship of this triad is joined that of the Sun; an arrangement,
which again perfectly corresponds with the mythology of the Gentiles in the
old world. These remarks will lead us to a right understanding of the wild
fiction, which the American savages have received from their ancestors, re
lative to the devouring or swallowing up of the Sun and the filial god by the
female deity whom they revere as the great mother. It alludes, I am per
suaded, to the entrance of the solar god Noah into the Ark ; and it is sub
stantially the same as the absorption of Bacchus by Ceres-Hippa. An idea
precisely similar occurs in the Druidical Mysteries: the aspirant, who
imitated in his own person all the sufferings of the great father, was sometimes
Herod, lib. ii. c. 60.
Diod. Bibl. lib. u p. 76.
Strab. Geog. lib. xi. p. 532.
THE ORIGIN OF PAGAN IDOLATIIT.
313
feigned to be swallowed up by the ship-goddess Ceridwen and to be after- eHAPwards born again as an infant from her womb.1
That Mr. Adair is mistaken in deducing the northern Americans from
the Israelites, and that I have rightly identified their ark-god Ho with Hu
or Huas, will appear yet more decidedly, if we examine the theology of
those two nations of the new world, which had made the greatest progress
in civilization, or (as I suspect we ought rather to -express ourselves) had the
least degenerated into the savage state from the institutes of their ancestors.
It is excellently conjectured by Sir William Jones, though he has not
pursued the investigation resulting from such an opinion, that the religion of
Mexico and Peru was the same in origin and substance, as that of Egypt,
Hindostan, Greece, Italy, China, and Japan.1 What he has omitted I shall
endeavour to supply : and, since the theology of those two more civilized
American nations is clearly the same as that of their northern brethren, if
we see reason to adopt his conjecture as the truth, it will obviously follow,
that the ark-god, whose character we have last discussed, must be the same
as the ark-god of Egypt, and those other countries enumerated by Sir Wil
liam Jones.
2. The tradition of the Mexicans, at the period when their country fell
under the Spanish yoke, was as follows.
While their ancestors in a state of nomade barbarism were inhabiting re
gions that lie to the north of Mexico, their gods bade them seek new lands,
and specified distinctly the signs by which they should know them. This, if
we reduce their supputation to our era, occurred about the beginning of the
eighth century. They proceeded southward in quest of the predicted signs
so leisurely, that the last of the seven tribes, of which their family was com
posed, did not reach Mexico in less than three hundred years after the com
mencement of the journey.
From this tribe the Mexican Americans
claimed to be peculiarly descended. The god, whom they venerated, was
called Vitzliputzli or Mexitli : and he promised to make them lords of the
possessions of the six other tribes, and to lead them into a land abounding
with riches. Relying on his promise, they set forth under the immediate
1 Davies's Mythol. p. 22925.
* Asiat. Res. vol. i. p. 268.
312
Dot iv.
THE 'ORIGIN OF PAGAN IDOLATnY.
auSpjces 0f this deity : for, having placed him in an oracular ark or coffer
made of reeds, they consigned him to the care of four priests, who bore him
and his vehicle on their shoulders and pretended on every occasion to receive
their directions immediately from him. It was he, speaking in an audible
voice from his ark, who pointed out their line of march, who charged them
to halt, or who commanded them to advance : it was he, who prescribed
to them the whole ceremonial of their religion. The leader whom they fol
lowed, or rather the god himself, was called Mexi ; whence the nation re
ceived the appellation of Mexicans. In the course of their progress, they
sent to the lord of Culhuacan, who seems to have been the chief of one
of the tribes that had preceded them, to demand his daughter, in order that
she might be their queen and the mother of their god.
The request
was readily granted : but, the very night of her arrival, she was slain
by order of the deity. Afterwards she was flayed : and a young man,
ibeing covered with her skin and arrayed in her feminine attire, was
placed near the idol and consecrated as the mother of their god. A
youth thus attired was worshipped by them ever since : and the name, by
which they distinguished him, was Toccy, which signifies our great mother.
Leaving the territory of Culhuacan, they advanced to the place where
Mexico is now situated. Here their priests found all the signs, which the
god had pointed out as marking the scite of their final settlement. These
were a clear stream of water or rather a lake, surrounded with meadows,
well replenished with fish, and abounding with the water-lily or lotos. Ac
cordingly, the following night, Vitzliputzli appeared in a dream to an aged
priest ; and commanded, that they should seek a tree,1 which grew out of a
rock in the midst of the lake, and upon which they should observe an eagle
feeding on small birds, since that was destined to be the place where they
should build a city famous throughout the whole world. The search was
duly made ; and the ominous eagle was discovered in the very situation
described by the god. Forthwith, by common consent, they erected a tem-
1 Purcbas says tunal, which from the context seems to mean some kind of tree; but I know
not the precise import of the word.
THE ORIGIN OF PAGAN IDOLATEY.
313
porary building on the insular rock, that the ark of their deity might re3t
there until they should be able to construct a sumptuous temple for its re
ception. Next, they with much labour enlarged the area of the rocky
island by casting into the lake around it stone, timber, lime, rubbish, and
such other materials as they could manage to procure. When they had thus
gained a sufficient surface above the level of the water, they built upon it
the temple of their god and the future capital of their empire.*
We may readily discover in this curious tradition almost every idea, that
prevailed in the old diluvian worship.
The oracular ark, containing the god and borne by the priests, is the very
same as the oracular ark of Ammon or Osiris or Bacchus, and as the Argo
and Argha of the Greek and Hindoo mythologies.
The great mother of
the deity is that same great mother, whose rites prevailed universally
throughout the gentile world. And the lake with the rocky island is that an
cient symbol of the deluge and the mundane Ark, which we find so highly
venerated in every quarter of the globe. It is observable, that the Mexican
great mother was personated by a boy in female attire. This also was per
fectly agreeable both to the notions and practice of the old idolaters. They
alike, as I shall have occasion hereafter more largely to specify, esteemed
the great father and the great mother an hermaphrodite ; for their androgy
nous deity was formed by the close union of the two : whence, as their
priests and priestesses were supposed to personate and represent the objects
of their worship, they gave them as much of this mixed nature as it was in
their power to do.
The manner in which the Mexicans were brought to the place destined
for the foundation of their city, and the marks by which that place was to
be known, afford another proof of the identity of their theology and that of
the old continent. It is easy to collect from the tenor of the tradition, that
the ancestors of the Mexicans were a wandering horde of Tatars : who, at
a comparatively recent epoch, passed over from Siberia into America, and,
advancing southward, at length founded no contemptible empire. It appears
likewise, that they journeyed under the direction of their priests ; who bore
Pag. Idol
1 Purch. Pilgr. b. viii. c. 10.

vOL. II.
314
with much solemnity the figure of their god inclosed within an ark or hoat,
and who from time to time pretended to receive from him oracular responses
specifying the course of their journey. Of an exactly similar description
were the migrations of the arkite theologists in the old world. As Mr.
Wilford justly observes, when tracing the connection of the Indian Argha
with the Greek and Egyptian Argo and with the sacred ship of the Ger
manic or Gothic Suevi, the mystic boat was held by some of the first emi
grants from Asia to be their Palladium or pledge of safety, and as such was
carried by them in their variousjourneys; whence the poets /eigned, that the
Argo was borne over mountains on the shoulders of the Argonauts.1 We
may also remark, that, when the ancient colonists were about to establish
a settlement or to build a city, they were wont to consult their god, and that
he in return pointed out certain specific marks by which they might know the
destined place. These marks were usually in close connection with their
religion, the artful priests contriving to blend superstition even with their very
existence as a settled nation. Thus Ilus and Cadmus were each com
manded by an oracle to build Troy and Thebes on the exact spot where a
cow should lie down : and thus the Phenicians laid the foundations of Car
thage, where they dug up the heads of a bull and a horse ; the latter of
which, according to Virgil, was the express sign which their guardian deity
had declared to them.* The signs pointed out by the ark-god of the Mex
icans were, in the first instance, a lake abounding with the lotos and well
stored with fish ; and, in the second, a rocky island in the midst of the lake
with an eagle perched upon it. Now the lotos was a well-known sacred ve
getable both in Egypt and India ; and we are told, that it was a symbol of
the mundane ship Argha : whence, from its property of always floating
on the surface of the water, the diluvian gods were represented sitting
within its calix. The fish and the eagle were also sacred ; and, as such,
were highly venerated in every quarter of the world. These additions to
the lake and the island are almost the only particulars, in which the direc
tions given to the Mexicans by their ark-god differ from those marked out to
* Asiat. Res. vol. iii. p. 137, 138.
1 Eustath. in Dion. Pcricg. ver. 195. Virg. JEne'id. lib. i. ver. 44544<).
315
awandering colony of the ancient Pelasgi or Scythic Palli. They were

commanded by an oracle to shape their course to Italy, and not to settle
until they should find a lake with a floating island in the midst of it.1 The
lake proved to be that of Cotyle : and most probably the ingenuity of the
priests supplied the symbolical floating island, which seems to have been one
of the same description as Chemmis in the Egyptian lake near Buto.1
The form of Vitzliputzli was that of a man seated on an azure-coloured
stool in an ark or litter, at every corner of which there was a piece of wood
carved into the shape of a serpent's head. His forehead was likewise azure ;
and a band of azure passed under his nose from one ear to the other. Upon
his head he had a rich plume of feathers covered on the top with. gold. In
his left hand he held a white target : and in his right he grasped an azure
staff carved into the semblance of a waving snake. '. The box or ark or
litter, within which he was seated, was covered with linen clothes, feathers,
jewels, and ornaments of gold ; and it was conspicuously placed upon a
lofty altar.
Before him was drawn a curtain or veil, by way of exciting the
greater veneration.
Such was the ark-god of the Mexicans ; and it is
worthy of notice, that they supposed all his ornaments to have a certain
mystical sense attached to them.' In this opinion I believe them to have
been perfectly right. The dark azure or blue approaching to black is a sa
cred colour highly venerated both by the Hindoos and the Egyptians ; mot
probably as being the hue of the watery element, on which the great father
and the Ark once floated.4 The serpent, which possesses the faculty of
casting its skin and appearing again in renovated youth, was. a very general
symbol of the transmigrating diluvian god, who was supposed to have ex
perienced a second birth : hence it was placed in the bosoms of those who
were initiated into the Mysteries, as a token of their regeneration.* The
' Dion. Halic. Ant. Rom. lib. i. c. 15, 19.
1 Mr. Southey, in his poem of Madoc, describes the forefathers of the Mexicans as having
artificial floating islands covered with turf and flowers, on which they ferried over the waters of
a. sacred lake. He also speaks of their god Mexitli or Vitzliputzli as bom from the great mo
ther without the concurrence of a father. Both these particulars are strictly accordant with
the spirit of old mythology. His authorities are the Spanish writers.
* Purch. Pilgr. b. viii. c. 11.
* Asiat. Res. vol. i. p. 26l. Euscb. Praep. Evan. lib. i. c. 11.
'Clem. Alex. Cohort, p. 11.
C,,AP"
316
THE OEIGIN OF PAGAN IDOLATRV.
stool, as the Spanish writers call it, on which the deity was seated, I take
to have been in reality the calix of the lotos ; which was placed in the centre
of the ark, agreeably to the practice both of the Greeks, the Hindoos, and
the Egyptians, to symbolize the sacred oracular navel : and I am the more
confirmed in my opinion by an evident mistake of a precisely similar nature,
which Dr. Parsons has made with respect to the curious Siberian medal in
the cabinet of the Russian autocrat.
He says, that the triple divinity,
whose form it exhibits, is seated upon a low sopha or stool : but the most
careless inspection of thefacsimile of the medal will convince any person,
who has paid the least attention to the mythological antiquities of Egypt and
Hindostan, that the supposed stool is no other than the sacred aquatic lotos
and the god himself the triplicated great father.1 Now the region, where
this medal was found, is the precise country which must have been occupied
by the ancestors of the Mexicans previous to their crossing over into Ame
rica : we may therefore be tolerably sure, that, if the stool on the medal be
a lotos, the stool of the Mexican god must be a lotos also. This same
flower, unless I greatly mistake, was nearly allied to the Delphic tripod, on
which the priestess sat when she received from the sacred rocky cleft the va
pour of inspiration : and, in a similar manner, the curtain of Vitzliputzli
seems to be closely connected with the curtain of the Pythian Apollo and
with the mystic veil of Isis and Hymen.
In conjunction with Vitzliputzli the Mexicans worshipped another god,
whom they called Tlaloc. These two were always placed together : for they
esteemed them companions, and ascribed to them an equal degree of power.1
The triad was completed by the goddess, whom they styled the great mother,
and whom they venerated as the goddess of the waters. 5
As I have already
observed, like the chief female deity of the pagans in every quarter of the
globe, she was a personification of the mundane Ark floating on the surface
of the ocean : while the two other members of the triad correspond withOsiris and Horus, Jupiter and Dionusus, Woden andThor, or Jagan-Nath
' Remains of Japhet. p. 184, 187* Purch. Pilgr. b. viii. c. 11.
3 Purch. Pilgr. b. viii. c. 10. This goddess of the waters was personated by a priest in
female attire precisely in the same manner as the Mexican great mother : whence I infer, that
they were one goddess.

and Bal-Rama.
317
These were accounted the peculiar divinities of the sacred
lake : and the Mexicans annually propitiated them by a very characteristic

human sacrifice. On the day appointed for the ceremony, they embarked
upon the lake in a great number of canoes, carrying with them a boy and a
girl. When arrived in the middle of it, they placed the unhappy victims in a
little boat; and caused it to sink with them in such a manner, that it never
again appeared. 1 The rite needs but little explanation : the two children
were designed to represent the infant great father and mother on the surface
of the intermediate deluge ; and the whole ceremony bears a resemblance
which can scarcely be mistaken to the Hindoo practice of committing the
goddess to the water, the Egyptian custom of precipitating a virgin into the
Nile and setting Osiris afloat in his ark, and the ancient Roman mode of
sacrificing men to the diluvian Cronus by throwing them into the Tiber.*
3. Religious notions and practices, more or less resembling those of the
Mexicans, prevailed in every other part of America:' but I must hasten to
the theology of the second civilized empire in that quarter of the world.
The principal god of the Peruvians was called Viracocha and PacJiacamac. The latter of these titles I suspect to be compounded of the Indian
Baghis and Cama, the Bacchus and Caimis of the Greeks and Egyptians :
but the former denotes, in their language, thefroth of the sea. This mari
time god was esteemed by them the great author of nature : and, next to him,
or rather (as I believe) in conjunction with him, they worshipped the Sun.
The rites of Viracocha, agreeably to his name, had an immediate relation to
the sea, whence he was thought to have been born. He was likewise sup
posed to have sprung from the great lake Titiaca : but the import of both
these legends is substantially the same ; for a lake was a symbol of the deluge,
and the sacred lake of the Peruvians appears to have received its appellation
from the great mother Sita or Titea. Accordingly we find both it and Virachoca immediately connected with their traditions of the deluge. They sup
posed, that, when all the inhabitants of the world were destroyed by the
waters of a flood, it was repeopled by their ancestors ; who, at that period,
1 Purch. Pilgr. b. viii. c. 13.
1 Asiat. Res. vol.i. p. 251. Niebuhr's Travels, sect. ii. c. $, Lactant. Instit. lib. i. 21.
1 See Purch. Pilgr. b. viii. and ix.
CHAP. ,v-
318
came out of a cave within which they had been concealed : and they bad
another legend, that, when all men were drowned, Viracocha emerged from the
lake Titiaca, and thence proceeded to Cusco ; after which time mankind began
to multiply.' These two fables relate the same event in a somewhat different
manner : but they are both conceived perfectly according to the genius of
ancient Paganism. The cave, whence the ancestors of the Peruvians came
forth after the deluge, means the Ark; which was symbolized by a gloomy
grotto, whence the great father and such as were initiated into the Mysteries
were thought to be born again : and the lake, whence Virachoca was sup
posed to have emerged when all mankind perished by water, symbolizes the
diluvian ocean, of which he was esteemed the mystic offspring. In this same
lake, as I have already had occasion to mention, the Peruvians shewed a
small island, where they believe that the Sun once hid himself and was thus
preserved from impending danger. Hence they built a temple to him upon it,
provided it with an establishment of priests and women, and there offered to
him great sacrifices both of men and of animals. It is curious to observe,
how exactly these notions coincide with those which prevailed among the
Gentiles of the eastern continent. We have here the symbolical lake and
sacred island, a lake avowedly connected with the deluge and the repeopling
of the earth, so that the import of the legend cannot be mistaken. We have
here also the Sun, or Viracocha worshipped in conjunction with the Sun,
sheltering himself from danger in the small island;, precisely in the same
manner as the Greek Apollo and the Egyptian Horus, each of whom was
confessedly the Sun, severally received shelter from their implacable enemy
the ocean in the floating islands of Delos and Chemmis. The correspondence
between the three fables is such, that their identity cannot reasonably be
doubted : and, if their identity be allowed, then the religion of Peru must
have had a common origin with that of Greece and Egypt.
With Viracocha or Pachacamac they worshipped the Earth under the
name of Pachamama, esteeming her the mother of all things ; and the sea
under the cognate name of Mamacocha, which denotes the mother sea. By
the first of these they meant the great universal mother that once floated on,
' Purch. Pilgr. b. ix. c. 9- P- 87*.
319
the ocean, between whom and the Earth there existed throughout the mythology of the Gentiles a systematic intercommunion of personality : and the
second, from the circumstances of the deluge, was ever reckoned the general
parent both of gods and men. 1 That such was the case, may be collected
from the character of another symbolical deity who was associated with them.
This was the rainbow with a snake attached to either extremity of it.
It seems to me sufficiently evident, that Pachacama and Pachamama are
the same as those two remarkable personages, from whom they deduced
both the family of their Incas and the foundation of their empire. Their
traditions inform us, that, while their ancestors roamed naked in the forests,
strangers to every species of cultivation" or regular industry, attached to no
fixed residence, and unacquainted with those sentiments and obligations which
form the first bonds of social union ; a man and a woman, of majestic form,
and clothed in decent garments, suddenly appeared on the banks of the lake
Titiaca. They declared themselves to be the children of the Sun ; and assert
ed, that they were sent by their beneficent parent to instruct the human race
and to reclaim them from the irregularities of savage life. At their persua
sion, enforced by reverence for the divinity in whose name they were supposed
to speak, several of the hitherto dispersed natives united together and followed
them to Cusco, where they founded the capital of their future empire. The
names of these extraordinary persons were Manco-Capac and Mama-Ocolb.
The former instructed the men in agriculture and other useful arts, while the
latter taught the women to spin and to weave. Nor did Manco attend only
to the first objects of necessity in an infant state, such as food, raiment, and
habitations : he was likewise the great lawgiver of the empire which he
founded ; and, by precisely defining the functions of those in authority and
by establishing a due subordination of ranks in the governed, he handed
dow n to hts descendants and successors the Incas a well-ordered and regular
body pohtic.
Any one in the least degree conversant with the mythology of the pagans
cannot avoid being struck with the perfect resemblance of character between
Manco-Capac, and Osiris, Dionusus, Hu, Phoroneus, Cronus, and Janus,
' tlx.ta.vov Tf fifuiv ytyta-iy, nou ju.^rtf TijSuy, precisely expresses the Peruvian notion.
cnA,,. ,v-
THE OttlGIN OF PAGAN IDOLATIIY.

oox iv.
on ^ one hand . an(j between Mama-Ocollo, and Isis, Ceres, Ceridwen,

and Cybele, on the other hand. This circumstance alone might lead us to
suspect, what persons we ought to understand by them : and the suspicion
will acquire additional strength from the apparent identity of Manco-Capac
and Pachacama, and consequently of Mama-Ocollo and Pachamama.
Manco and Pachacama are each described as being the offspring of the Sun,
and the latter is additionally said to have been born of the Moon notwithstand
ing his production from the sea and the lake Titiaca : they are each also
feigned to have first appeared on the banks of that lake : and they are each
celebrated as the founder of Cusco and as the first monarch of the Peruvian
empire. But Pachacama, whosfe various modes of allegorical nativity may
easily be reconciled with each other, is certainly the transmigrating great
father : Manco-Capac therefore must be the same. And, if Manco-Capac
be the great father, the analogy of Paganism requires us to infer, that MamaOcollo or the mother Ocollo is the arkite Magna Mater. Manco in short,
the offspring of the Sun, is the diluvian Menu of the Hindoos, who is simi
larly feigned to be an emanation from the solar deity, and who is thence
venerated under the appellation of Vaivaswata. The very name indeed
seems to be a mere variation of that title, which by different nations was
differently expressed Menu, Menet, Manes, Mannus, Man, Menwyd,
Minos, or Manacan.
It is curious to observe the numerous points of coincidence between the
superstition of the Peruvians and that which prevailed throughout the whole
of the eastern continent.
Both they and their neighbours the Mexicans had consecrated virgins,
whose functions and whose vow of celibacy precisely resembled those of the
vestal virgins at Rome.
The bull was venerated by the Peruvians no less than by the idolaters of
Europe, Asia, and Africa. This animal, I have little doubt, was the sym
bol of Manco-Capac or Pachacama ; as it was of Bacchus, Osiris, Menu,
and Siva : and we may remark, that one of the sacred bulls of Egypt actually
bore the name of Pads, which was compoundedly expressed Pacha-Cama
by the Peruvians. Pacts is the same title, as what the Greeks wrote Bac
chus, and the Hindoos express Baghis : and, if I mistake not, it forms the
THE OUIGIN OF PAOAN IDOLATRY.
321
second appellation of the Sun-born Manco ; for Capac is probably no other

than the Ce-Bacche of the ancient Irish or the Ca-Baghis of the Hindoos,
the import of which is the illustrious Bacchus.
In all their sacrifices the Peruvians used shells, calling them the
daughters of the Ocean, while the sea itself they denominated the greet
mother of waters. I suspect, that the shells which they employed on
such occasions were of an oval form resembling boats : and I am the more
inclined to this conjecture from the obvious resemblance between the Peruvian
custom and a parallel one of the Hindoos. In every sacred rite of whatsoever
description these last constantly use the vessel called Argha, which is an
avowed copy of the mystic ship Argha which floated with Siva on the surface
of the deluge. With a similar reference and in a similar manner, Ihe Greeks
employed their paterae and fashioned their sacred cups in the form of boats.
Oval or round shells then were the arghas or patera of the Peruvians : and,
in what light they considered them, may easily be collected from their styling
them daughters of the Ocean.
They were symbols of that sea-born goddess,
whom the Greeks and Romans worshipped under the name of Venus or
Aphrodite* ; the Syrians, under that of Atargatis or Derceto ; and the
Hindoos, under that of Rama-Devi or Lacshmi or Asyotcersa or Parvati or
Durga. Incach case was equally meant the Ark, represented by the ship
Argha or Argo and by the navicular dish or shell : and hence it is, that the
Venus-Anadyomene is so frequently depicted standing in the midst of a large
circular shell resembling in form that of a cockle.
Both the Mexicans and the Peruvians had another custom, which must by
no means be passed over in silence.
Their sacred virgins were wont from
time to time to prepare certain loaves or cakes for the idol which they vene
rated. These were sometimes made in the form of hands and feet, and
sometimes were so moulded as to imitate the shape of the idol himself.
Such lumps of paste they considered as the bones and flesh of their god.
They served them up in large golden dishes, which the Hindoos, I presume,
would have called arghas : and, in the course of the ceremony, they all
devoutly partook of them. We may here again trace the palpable identity
of the American theology and that which prevailed so widely throughout the
eastern continent. These cakes were evidently of the same nature as those,
Pag. Idol.
vol. ii.
2S
0HA-P- v-
S22
book it.
THE ORIGIN OF PAGAN IDOLATttY.
which the Canaanitish women were accustomed to make in honour of Astoreth

or the lunar arkite queen of heaven.' A similar custom prevailed both in
Greece and Egypt. The sacred cakes were called Bous from their being
formed with two little horns, so as to imitate the mystic heifer, which was
at once the symbol of Isis, the Earth, the Ark, and the lunar Crescent.
They were offered every seventh day to the Moon: and, as the Mexican
loaf, which was an imitation of the god, was composed of maize moulded
with honey; so these sacred cakes were made of honey kneaded with fine
flour.* We may observe, that the loaves of the American devotees were
solemnly set out before the idol on a table : and precisely in the same manr
ner, as we learn from St. Jerome, were the cakes, together with wine and
other victuals, set out on a table before the deities of Egypt. To this prac
tice, as he justly observes, Isaiah alludes, when he speaks of certain Jewish
apostates ; who, forgetting the holy mountain of Jehovah, prepared a tablo
for Gad or the Cuthic Ghaut, and who provided a drink-offering for Meni or
the lunar Menu.' I may add, that St. Paul clearly refers to the same ancient
custom, when he points out the utter incompatibility of Christianity and
Paganism, by asserting, that we cannot consistently drink of the cup of the
Lord and of the cup (that is, the Patera or Argha) of demon^gods, that we
cannot at once partake of the Lord's table and of the table of hero-divinities.4
The curious apocryphal story of Bel and the Dragon is evidently founded
upon the rite now under consideration : and it is valuable, as presenting an
apparently faithful picture of the old serpent-worship of the Babylonians.
Jeremiah calls the cakes, which were offered to the queen of heaven, Chonim,
in the singular, Chon. I take it, that this appellation, is borrowed from the
name of Chum, which the Egyptians varied into Chon and Gigon or the
illustrious Chon. They applied the title to the great fether, whom the Greeks
sometimes called Hercules and sometimes Cronus, The Peruvians had also
a god denominated Con ;, whom they made the offspring of the Sun, and to
1 Jcrciiuvii. 18. xliv. 15 19* Ilesych. Lex. Bsu;. Diog. Laert. in vit. Emped. The name of the cake in one of the
oblique cases is Brmn, or (as the Latins would write ii) Bun. Hence we have borrowed our
English word Butt: and from the same pagan source has originated the old popish custom^
which wc still retain, of selling a sort of consecrated cakes named Buns on good friday.
1 Isaiah l.w. n, Hieion. Comment, in loc.
4 1 Corinth, x. 21.
323
whom they ascribed the first production of bread and of all things necessary
to life. They speak indeed of a contest between Con and Pachicama, which
may perhaps have some reference to the struggle between Osiris and Typhon :
but both the character and the origin of these two gods plainly bespeak their
identity.
It will be recollected, that, by the mystic theocrasy of the ancients,
even Typhon and Osiris were sometimes considered as one deity.

As the chief god of the Peruvians was the great father adored in the Sun,
we shall not wonder to find, that, like all the other pagans, they venerated
a certain divine triad. This was properly composed of the three sons of that
transmigrating primeval personage, whose production was considered by the
mysticizing genius of Paganism in the light of a wonderful self-triplication
of their parent : but, since the great father was revered in the Sun, and since
in the progress of pantheistic theology the different parts of creation were
esteemed his different members, the Peruvian triad, like that of the Hindoos,
was transferred to the Sun and to the elements. Thus, while they worshipped
an idol named Tangatanga or Three-in-one, the exact Trimurti of the Hin
doos : they likewise multiplied the Sun into three persons, the father Sun,
the son Sun, and the brother Sun ; and venerated three images of the god of
the air, considered as presiding in thunder, rain, and snow.'
XI. Evident traces of the same theological system may be observed also
in the island of Otaheite : and it is probable, if minute inquiry were made,
that it would likewise be found to prevail throughout the other islands scat
tered in clusters over the vast Pacific ocean.
When captain Cooke first visited Otaheite, the natives venerated a kind of
sacred chest or ark. The lid of this machine, according to the description
of it which has been given to us, was nicely sewed on, and thatched with
palm-nut leaves. The ark itself was fixed upon two poles, and supported
on little arches of wood very neatly carved. The use of the poles seemed to
be to remove it from place to place, in the manner of a sedan-chair. At
one end of it was a square hole : and in the middle of the hole was a ring
touching the sides but leaving the angles open, so as to form a round hole
' Purch. Pilgr. b. ix. c. 9, 10, 11, 12. b. viii. c. 12, 13.
iii. p. 2184, 200, 201.
Robertson's Hist. o/Amer. voL
324
tsook n.
wjthin a square one.
The first time that Sir Joseph Banks saw this ark,
the aperture at the end was stopped with a piece of cloth, which he left un
touched to avoid giving offence. Probably there was then something within :
but, when he afterwards examined it, the cloth was taken away, and the
coffer was found empty.
The same machine is noticed in the narrative of
captain Cooke's last voyage,, and sbme interesting particulars are added. Sir
Joseph Banks had been informed, that it was called the house of the god:
but we are now further told, that the name of the god, to whom it was de
dicated, was Ooro. The English were not allowed to go near enough to examiue its mysterious contents : but they learned, that Ooro, or rather a
symbol supposed to represent him, was concealed within it. This sacred
repository was made of the twisted fibres of the husk of the cocoa-nut : and
in form it was somewhat round, but with one end much thicker than the
other.
Captain Cooke and his attendants were present at a sacrifice to Ooro.
The rite was performed in a Morai, which is at once a place of worship

and of burial. That, where the English witnessed the sacrifice, was the
principal one in the island ; and its form was that of an obtuse oblong pyra
mid with a square area on each side. At a small distance from the end of it
nearest to the sea was a large scaffold or lofty table, on which the offerings of
fruit and other vegetables were laid : and by the side of it was a heap of stones
constituting a rude altar. Here the sacrifices were offered up, which were
frequently men no less than animals : and here the ark of the god Ooro wa&
placed during the performance of the ceremony.*
Dr. Ilawksworth, who arranged for publication the minutes of captain
Cooke's first voyage, seems to have been struck with the ark of the Otaheiteans
much in the same manner as Mr. Adair was with the ark of the northern Ame
ricans ; for he observes, that the general resemblance between that sacred
coffer and the Jewish ark of the Lord is remarkable : and he considers it as
still more remarkable, that it should be called Ewharre no Eatua or the
house of the god. I do not wonder at his noticing the resemblance ; though
I think it no proof of the Hebrew origin of the Otaheiteans, any more than of
the northern Americans. The additional particulars relative to this ark-god,
* Cooke's First royagc. b. i. c. 20. Third voyage, b. iii. c. 2.
THE 0R101N OF PAGAN IDOLATRY.
395
afterwards furnished by captain Cooke, shew pretty evidently, that he was

the great universal father of the gentile world, venerated alike throughout the
eastern and the western continent. The ark, furnished with staves for the pur
pose of being carried by the priests in solemn procession, is the same sacred
boat, as the Argo of Ammon or Osiris, the Argha of Siva, and the ark of
Bacchus, Hu, Ho, and Vitzliputzli. Its square aperture or door, fur
nished with an interior ring, is no other than the sacred oracular navel or
omphalus. * And the god, who was thought to lie concealed within it, is
that primeval character, whose mystic concealment or aphanism formed so
prominent a feature in the ancient Orgies. It was not however so much the
god himself who was thought to be hidden within the ark, as his symbol or
representation. What thi3 symbol was, we are not able positively to say;
for the Otaheiteans, it appears, were as unwilling to expose the contents of
their sacred ark to the eyes of the profane, as the hierophants of the Dionysic
Mysteries : but I more than suspect, that it was the very same as that^
which was inclosed within the ark of Bacchus, and which was so generally
esteemed by the pagans the peculiar type of the great father. The name of
this ark-god was Ooro. Now, though I wish not to build upon etymology;
yet, when I observe such decided marks of resemblance between the Otaheitean theology and that of Egypt, I am strongly inclined to conjecture,,
that this Ooro is the same even in appellation, no less than in character, as
the Horus of the Egyptians and the Auri of the Hindoos.
The mode of conducting the worship corresponds with the deity. The
scaffold or table, on which were placed the offerings of fruit, is but a copy of
that table, on which the sacred bovine cakes and drink-offerings were wont
to be set out to Menu and the lunar queen of heaven : while the obtuse
pyramid serves to shew, that the Otaheiteans represented the mountain of the
ship just in the same manner as their idolatrous brethren of Egypt, Hindostan,
and Babylonia.
Their worship of the ark-god produced as its natural consequence the
veneration of a triplicated deity. It seems probable, that the natives have
recently adapted the titles of this divinity to the doctrine which they have.
* Respecting the omphalus more will be said hereafter. Vide infra b. v. c. 4.
HI..
326
THE OftlCIN OF PAGAN IDOLATRY.
received from the Missionaries ; who in their turn have been too hasty in
fancying, that the Otaheitean theology exhibits traces of a primeval belief in
the Holy Trinity. They have been misled, much in the same manner as
the fathers were by a specious decoration of the old Orphic triad. If the
grand outlines of the Otaheitean religion did not afford the best comment on
its triad, we should have a very satisfactory one in the tradition ; that formerly
a man was born of the sand of the sea, who married his own daughter, and
by her became the parent of three males and three females. These inter
married : and with their descendants the earth was gradually peopled. The
three sons of him, who, like the Indian Menu or Buddha, espoused his
allegorical daughter, were the true prototypes of the triad of Otaheite. *
" Mission. Voyage to the south sea. p. 344.
CHAPTER
V.
Respecting the human character of the great father, as exhibited m

the Buddhic or Thothic or Hermetic or Samanian theology.
I now proceed to consider the human character of the great father, as ex

hibited in different countries by the adherents of what may be termed the
Buddhic or Thothic or Hermetic or Samanean superstition. These in some
parts of the world subsist distinct from the Brahmenists : but in the west they
appear to have been early blended together.
Yet even there we may trace
the vestiges of two systems ; each of which, as may be argued from its univer
sality, must be as old as the dispersion from Babel.
I: In the ninth Indian Avatar Vishnou is said to have appeared in the form
of Buddha, Boudha, Boudh, or Bouta, as the name is variously expressed
in our western characters. Buddha therefore is really the same person as
Vishnou or Bacchus or Osiris. Each is alike the great father both of gods
and men. Hence the adherents of the two primeval superstitions differ not
so much in the object of their worship, as in the mode of exhibiting that ob
ject : and hence again, sinee the very same person is venerated-by each class
of sectaries, and since consequently in the grand outlines the god of the one
must correspond with the god of the other, we shall not be surprised to find
in the two systems a strong tendency to amalgamation. This commixture
has actually taken place in the west : and, even in India, however the Bran-

book iv.
menists may detest the Buddhists, the orthodoxy of the former is but faintly
discriminated from the heterodoxy of the latter ; and Buddhism, as it has
been justly remarked, melts insensibly into Brahmenism.1
1 . No part of old mythology is more curious, though in some respects
more intricate, than the character and worship of Buddha : yet much of this
intricacy may be unravelled, if we steadily bear in mind that that divinity is
properly no other than the transmigrating great father ; and if at the same
time we carefully remember the established gentile doctrine, that the great
father is repeatedly manifested afresh, not only at the commencement of
each world, but in the person of every eminent legislator or reformer who
appears during the continuance of a mundane system.
The Brahmens say, that the religion of Buddha is heretical ; yet, as we
have just seen, they represent him as an incarnation of Vishnou : and, in an
ancient Sanscrit inscription at Buddha-Gaya, he is celebrated as a portion of
Narayan, or the being that moved upon the waters ; is invoked as Om ; is
declared to be the very same as the Hindoo Trimurti, or the triple god
Brahma-Vishnou-Mahesa ; and is described, like Vishnou, as the divinity,
who rested upon the face of the milky ocean, and who reposed upon the
navicular serpent Sesa or Ananta.* Nevertheless he is sometimes said not to
have been an Avatar of Vishnou : or, if he were an incarnation of that deity,
we are told, that he ought not to be reckoned among the Avatars, inasmuch
as he was manifested solely to seduce the people into erroneous doctrines.
Hence he is considered as the promulgator of an heterodox religion, and his
votaries are deemed infidels.' Lastly, we find many acknowledging Buddha
as the ninth Avatar of Vishnou, but maintaining him to be a different person
from the heretic Buddha ; who is worshipped in Ceylon, Bootan, Thibet,
China, and the eastern peninsula of Siam and Malaya.4
In these discordant opinions we may, I think, easily perceive where the
truth lies. The primeval Buddha is the same as Vishnou, or Siva, or
Osiris : while the Buddha, who is reprobated as a heretic and who is denied
by the Brahmenists to be an incarnation of the great father, was a religious
* Moor's Hind. Panth. p. 241.
* Asiat. Res. vol. i. p. 284, 285.
* Asiat. Res. vol. vii. p. 55, 56. vol. viii. p. 532, 533.
* Asiat. Res. vol. viii. p. 532, 533.
THE ORIGIK OF PAOAN IDOLATRY:.
329
adventurer; who assumed the title and character of the god, who claimed to
be one of his numerous terrestrial manifestations, and who as such made
certain obnoxious changes in the old fiuddhic theology. To ascertain the
precise era of this impostor is perhaps no easy matter. Some place him,
or at least an Avatar of Buddha, about a thousand years before Christ:
but I am inclined to believe, that the person, whose modification of Buddhism
gave such offence to the Brahmenists, must have flourished very considerably
later ; for neither Porphyry, nor Strabo, nor Clemens, all of whom mention
the two great Indian sects, give the least hint of any animosity subsisting
between them. Agreeably to such an opinion, what is deemed the heresy of
Buddha is commonly supposed to have been introduced into China no earlier
than in the course of the first century after Christ.1 At any rate, I certainly
think with Georgi, that the impostor in question was an entirely distinct
person from the proper and original Buddha.
Accordingly, whatever might be the era of this pretended Avatar of the
god, the Buddhists themselves justly insist, that their religion existed from
the beginning : and, in support of their assertion, we have cogent proofs,
that at a very remote period it prevailed throughout the whole of Hindostan ;
or, as we ought rather to say, that it extended itself from the north of Tartary to Ceylon and from the Indus to Siam, even omitting its establishment
in the more western parts of Asia and Europe. In many of the countries
within this ample range it still prevails either wholly or partially : and the
votaries of Buddha yet continue to flourish throughout China and its tribut
ary nations ; in the great empires and states of Cochin-China, Cambodia,
Siam, Pegu, Ava, Asam, Thibet, Boutan; among many of the Tatar
tribes, and generally in all regions east of the Ganges ; and throughout most
of those vast and numerous islands which lie to the east and the south of the
farther Indian promontory. 1 The whole legend of Buddha indeed sufficiently
proves him to be the great transmigrating father, and thus tends to demon
strate the high antiquity of his worship : and, in supposing that some more
recent impostor assumed his name and character, I suppose nothing but what
is perfectly consistent with the accredited doctrines of Paganism.
' Asiat. Res. vol. ii. p. 123126.
* Asiat. Res. vol. vi. p. 531. vol. vii. p. 398 et infra.
Pag. Idol
vol. n.
Moor's Hind. Panth. p. 240.

2 T
CHAP- v
330
look iv.
THE ORTGIN OF PAGAS IDOLATKY.
Since the principal god of the Buddhists then is the very same person as
the principal god of the Brahmenists ; we may naturally expect, that these
contending idolaters will, after all, be separated by only a narrow line of
demarcation. Accordingly, between the two systems there is so close a
general resemblance, that there can be no doubt, as Mr. Joinville has well
observed, that the one is the child of the other; and, since genuine Buddhism
excites the idea of something crude and unformed while Brahmenism wears
a finished and systematic aspect, I am inclined with him to concede priority
to the former.1 Yet would I carry back the origin of both to the epoch of
the Babylonian tower ; because on no other principle can we satisfactorily
account for the universal prevalence of both. Buddhism then seems to
me to be the first corruption of Patriarchism, the commencement of what
Epiphanius calls the Scythic heresy : while Brahmenism is apparently the
completion and perfection of that heresy. Some of the architects of Babel
preferred the one : some chose rather to adhere to the other : and some mixed
the two together. This religious dissention was, if I mistake not, the second
ary and subordinate cause of the dispersion.
2. In the Matsya-Avatar, which relates to the deluge and to the preser
vation of Menu-Satyavrata in an ark, Vishnou appears under the form of a
man issuing out of the mouth of a fish : and he is supposed, when the waters
abated, to have recovered the sacred books which had been lost. The fish
itself, we are told, was Maya, by which the Hindoos understood delusion :
and, as for Satyavrata, he was invested by Narayan in the office of Menu,
under the name of Sraddadeva or the god of obsequies. *
Now circumstantial evidence clearly demonstrates, that, as Buddha is
avowedly a manifestation of Vishnou, so he is likewise the same person as
Menu-Satyavrata or Noah.
A tomb is shewn at Naulakhi in the country of Cabul, where some very
ancient hero is supposed to be buried. The Mussulmans call him PeerMaitlam and Maitri-Burkhan, which in the dialect of Samarcand signifies
the lord and master. The Buddhists say, that he is Buddha- Narayana or
Buddha dwelling in the waters. And the Hindoos, who live in that coun
try, call him Maehodar-Nath or the sovereign prince in the belly of thefish.
' Asiat. Res. vol. vit. p. 398 et infra.
1 Asiat. Res. vol. i. p. 230234, 239-
331
Some fancy, that this person was the father of Satyavrata : but, as Mr.
Wilford justly observes, such titles are applicable to Noah alone, not to his
father Lamech. By the belly of the fish, he tells us, they understand the
cavity or inside of the Ark; the cetus or large sea-fish being a symbol of
that vessel. And he adds, that any place in the middle of waters, either
natural or artificial, which can afford shelter to living beings is called Machodara.1 Buddha then, as the sovereign prince in the belly of the fish, is
certainly Vishnou in the Matsya-Avatar, where that deity appears issuing
out of the mouth of a fish : and, since a fish was an acknowledged type of the
Ark, Buddha and Vishnou must equally be the same as Satyavrata or Noah.
His identity with Menu-Satyavrata further appears from another particular.
The author of the Amaracosha tells us, that he was the son of the lunar god,
and that he married Ila the daughter of the ark-preserved Menu. * Yet Ila
was likewise the wife of her own father Menu-Satyavrata. As Satyavrata
therefore who was saved from the deluge in an ark, and as Buddha who is
said to have floated upon the waters and to have been inclosed in the belly of
a fish, are each the husband of Ila ; they must clearly be the same person.
Buddha being thus fundamentally one with Menu-Satyavrata, we find
them each bearing the title of Dharmarqjah or King of justice; as they
are each reported to have married Ila, and each to have floated on the waters
of the ocean.' Hence, in the Sanscrit inscription already referred to, Buddha
is described, as resting upon the face of the milky sea, and as being Sraddadeva or the god of obsequies.4 Hence also, in his temple at Oogul-Bodda,
his colossal image appears to be sleeping on a sort of navicular bed.5 And
hence, when esteemed an incarnation of Vishnou-Narayana, he is depicted
sitting in the calix of the sacred aquatic lotos. *
1 Asiat. Res. vol. vii. p. 411. vol. ii. p. 376.
3 Asiat. Res. vol. vii. p. 39- vol. ix. p. 88.
* Asiat. Res. vol. i. p. 284286. I conclude him to be Sraddadeva, which is a title of
Menu-Satyavrata, because the inscription attributes a peculiar efficacy to the performance of
the Sradda in the temple at Boodha-Gaya, and because under- the name of Salivakana he is
the Charon of Hindoo mythology.
5 Asiat. Res. vol. vi. p. 451. See Plate II. Fig. 2.
* Maur. Hist, of Hind. vol. ii. p. 480.
0HAP. Vi
332
3. According to an inscription in the Maga language communicated by

Lord Teignmouth, Buddha was born of Maha-Maya, the wife of SootahDannah Rajah of Cailas. As soon as he saw the light, he was placed by
Brahma in a golden vessel, and delivered to a female attendant; but the
child, alighting from her arms, walked seven paces without assistance. The
intelligence of his birth was speedily circulated : and a sage, who had re
paired to the palace of the Rajah for the purpose of visiting him, wept and
laughed alternately as soon as he beheld the wonderful infant, because in his
appearance he divined something both of good and bad import. He then
departed : but, when five days had elapsed, he assembled four Pandits for
the purpose of calculating the destiny of the child. Three of them conclud
ed, that, as he had marks on his hands resembling a wheel, he would become
a Rajah-Chacraverti : and a fourth determined, that he would arrive at the
dignity of Avatar. The boy was now named Sacya : and, when he attained
the age of sixteen years, he espoused the daughter of the Rajah Chuhidan,
with whom he repaired to his own place of residence. One day, as certain
Mysteries were revealed to him, he formed the design of relinquishing his
dominions; and accordingly left his palace with only one attendant and a
horse. He crossed the river Ganga, and arrived at Balucali ; where, having
directed his servant to leave him and carry away his horse, he laid aside his
armour. He then adopted the manners and life of a mendicant ; and clothed
himself with some pieces of wearing apparel, which he discovered in one of
the five flowers that appeared at the creation of the world. It happened,
that a traveller passed by and presented to him an offering of eight bundles
of grass. Sacya accepted the offering, and reposed upon it. Suddenly a
golden temple appeared, containing a chair of wrought gold.
On the sum
mit of the temple Brahma alighted> and held a canopy over the head of
Sacya ; while Indra with a fan in his hand, Naga prince of serpents, and
the four tutelary deities of the four corners of the universe, attended to do
him reverence and service. At the same time the chief of the Asoors arrived
with all his forces to give battle to Sacya : upon which, Brahma, Indra,
and the other deities, forsook him and vanished. Sacya, perceiving that he
was left alone, invoked the assistance of the Earth. She attended at hia
333
summons ; and suddenly brought a mighty deluge over all the ground, by
which the vanquished Asoor and his forces were compelled to retire. Then
five holy Scriptures descended from above; and Sacya was dignified with the
title of Buddha-Avatar.1
In the midst of much that is idle and impertinent, it is yet easy to disco
ver in the present fable traces of genuine primeval tradition.
Caiias or Cailasa, where Buddha is said to have been born, is the sacred
mountain of Indo-Scythic superstition. As Olympus is the seat of Jupiter
and his kindred divinities : so Cailasa, every splinter of whose rocks is an
inestimable gem, is the peculiar residence of the diluvian Siva. 1 It is, in
fact, one of the three holy peaks of Meru ; which thence is similarly described
as being the favourite haunt of the mariner of the Argha, and which is cele
brated as the birth-place of Deo-Naush or the Indian Bacchus. But the
prototype of Meru was the Paradisiacal Ararat.
Maya, we are told, in the Sanscrit signifies Delusion : and we find the
term applied to the symbolical fish of Vishnou, which makes so conspicuous
an appearance in the Hindoo history of the deluge. J Since therefore Maha
signifies great, when Buddha is said to be the son of Maha-Maya, he is
in effect said to be the son of the Great Delusion. I am much inclined
however to suspect, that Delusion is not the original, but only the super
added, sense of Maya. The Hindoos themselves inform us in a jargon,
which has clearly arisen from the doctrine of successive similar mundane
systems, that by Maya we are to understand the first inclination of the
godhead to diversify himself by creating worlds : and Sir William Jones was
told by a Cashmirian, that Maya herself is the mother of universal nature and
of all the inferior gods. 4 This exactly agrees with the import of the word
among the Greeks. Maia properly denotes a grandmother or a great
mother? It likewise signifies a nurse : but this I take to be only a secondary
meaning of the term, arising from the circumstance of a nurse being fre1 Asiat. Res. vol. ii. p. 383386. It is impossible not to observe the general resemblance
between the manner of this legend and that of many of the old mythological Welsh romances
produced by Mr. Davies.
* Ibid. p. 223.
5 Manx, *rfof xeu wtgof pjrijf. Hesych. Lex.
CHAp.
334
book iv.
qUently addressed among the ancients by the name of mother. Maha-Maya

then will be equivalent to the great mother : and this great mother, the
allegorical parent of Buddha, who is the same as Menu-Satyavrata, who is
thought to have floated on the ocean, and who is styled the prince in the
belly of the fish ; this great mother can only be the mundane Ark, the
Magna Mater of pagan mythology throughout the whole world. How the
word Maya may have acquired in Sanscrit the sense of Delusion, it is not
very difficult to conceive : the mode indeed of its introduction into the
Hindoo history of the deluge seems to account for the circumstance in a
manner far from unsatisfactory. It is there said, that the appearance of the
symbolical fish to Menu-Satyavrata was Maya or delusion. By this we must
evidently understand, that no fish literally appeared to him ; but that the
form assumed by Vishnou was purely hieroglyphical, and therefore delusive.
Now the arkite Maya was represented by a great variety of symbols ; by a
woman, a cow, a mare, a fish, a sow, and a lunar crescent. Each of these
was Maya or the Magna Mater : but each of them was likewise mere de
lusion. Hence, I apprehend, the word Maya acquired an additional signi
fication: but both the history of Buddha, and the remarkable compound
Maha-Maya or the great Maya, seem equally to lead us to the true pri
mitive meaning of the title. It is however of little moment to the main
question, whether I be right or wrong in this speculation : if Buddha be
Noah, his mother Maha-Maya, however we are to understand the name,
must in character, according to the universal analogy of Paganism, be the
ship Argha or the Ark.
With such an opinion the remainder of the legend exactly corresponds.
The golden vessel, in which the new-born Buddha is placed by Brahma, I
take to have been that sacred navicular dish or cup, which the Hindoos call
Argha, and which they esteem a copy of the ship of Iswara.
The alternate joy and sorrow of the sage when he beheld the infant, be
cause in his appearance he divined something both of good and bad import,
precisely accords with that part of Noah's character which was never for
gotten by his descendants. He was the god of destruction to the old world,
the god of regeneration to the new world : he was the terrific devourer of
335
his children ; yet he was likewise the venerated parent and restorer of man
kind.
- ' '
The wheels upon the hands of Buddha are those mystic rings or circles,
which most of the Indian Avatars are depicted as holding. They were alike
sacred in Britain, Samothrace, and Egypt : and they were considered as re
presenting at once the circle of the Universe and the inclosure of the Ark.
They are types in short of the Ida-vratta on the summit of Meru, whether it
symbolize the mundane ring, or shadow out what the Druids were wont to
call the Ark of the World.
The Mysteries said to have been revealed to Buddha we may reasonably
conclude to be those astronomico-diluvian Orgies, which were the basis of
gentile theology. Noah, or the principal arkite deity, was accounted the
first mystagogue : and each succeeding hierophant assumed his titles, and
was deemed his representative.
But the concluding part of the legend demands our special attention.
At
the moment when Sacya is solemnly inaugurated as Buddha-Avatar, he is

attacked by the Asoors and their gigantic chief. In this distress the Earth
assists him ; and, discharging a deluge of water from the central abyss,
speedily puts his enemies to flight. This fable requires but little comment,
so far as its import is concerned : but it contains much that is interesting in
the way of comparison and analogy. The Asoors, who are put to flight by
the deluge, are introduced into the Courma-Avatar as churning the troubled
ocean with the mountain Mandar ; while, on the summit of the hill, Vishnou
is seated in the calix of the hieroglyphical lotos. How this Avatar is imme
diately connected with the flood, how Mandar is Ararat, and how Vishnou
in the lotos is Noah in the Ark, has already been shewn at large : in the le
gend of Buddha, these Asoors are literally said to be routed by an inundation,
which the Earth pours forth against them.
The legend finally tells us, that, when the Asoors were put to the rout, five
holy Scriptures descended from above. These are those ancient volumes,
which the mythology of Paganism so generally supposed to have been pre
served at the time of the flood, and which were thought to have handed down
to the new world the collective wisdom of the old. They are the books,
which Xisuthrus was feigned to have buried during the prevalence of the
336
waters, and which Vishnou is thought to have recovered from the bottom of
the ocean when the deluge began to abate. They descend from heaven, be
cause they were preserved in the hieroglyphical Moon : just as the egg of
the Dioscori is said to have dropped from the lunar circle, and as the egg of
the Syrian Venus is reported to have fallen from heaven into the Euphrates.1
They are the books, in short, which we generally find introduced into the
history of the great father, by whatever name he may be celebrated.*
4. Among the Hindoos the general character of Buddha is that of a mild
and benevolent prince, who came to abolish the cruelty of sanguinary sacri
fices, and to preserve the lives of all animated beings.*
This notion probably originated from a perversion of the history of Noah.
The patriarch did not indeed abolish sacrifice ; on the contrary, he offered
up the first victim after the deluge : but his benevolent character seems to
correspond with that of Buddha; and, as in one sense he was the undoubted
preserver of the lives of all creatures, so the Samanean opinion respecting
the illegality of shedding blood may perhaps have arisen from a too much
extended interpretation of the doctrine of the Metempsychosis. At first
the soul of man was believed only to reappear in the person of man, as
each new world introduced a perfect repetition of the history of a former
world : but afterwards, partly from the use of bestial symbols, and partly
from a notion that the essence of the great father entered into all creation,
the human soul was thought to experience a penal transmigration through a
long succession of animal forms. Such an opinion would naturally produce
a horror of slaughtering the brute creation ; lest haply the limbs of a parent
should be served up at the table of a son, or a wife perish beneath the blows
of an unconscious husband.
The doctrine in question, and with it the aver
sion to the slaying of animals, was brought by Pythagoras out of the east,
where it took deep root and had long flourished in full luxuriancy.4
II. The Buddhists of Ceylon are the descendants of the continental
1 Athen. Deipnos. lib. ii. p. 57. Hyg. Fab. 1 97.

* Vide supra b. iii. c. 5.
* Asiat. Res. vol. iii. p. 197, 198, 201. Maur. Hist, of Hind. vol. ii. p. 481.
* Ovid. Metam. lib. xv. ver. 153177-
337
Buddhists, who emigrated at the revolution effected by the Brahmenists.*

These, on the old principle of the destruction and reproduction of similar
worlds, have imagined no less than twenty two Buddhas, of whom they al
lot five for the government of the present world. Four of them have
already appeared ; and a fifth, like the last Avatar of Vishnou, is thought
to be yet future. The Buddha, whose religion now prevails in Ceylon, is
Gautameh-Buddha. He is the person, who was born of Maha-Maya :
consequently he is the fabled husband of Ila or Argha, the sovereign prince
in the belly of the arkite fish, and the destroyer of the Asoors by the de
luge which the Earth poured out to his assistance.*
The Buddhists themselves do in effect explain this multiplication of their
god. The renewal of the world after the deluge, with many circumstances
resembling those which occurred at the commencement of the antediluvian
world, led to the belief in a succession of similar mundane systems. At
the beginning of each appears a Buddha or Menu ; whose office it is to re
plenish the new world with inhabitants, and who is accounted the universal
father both of hero-gods and of men. Hence, if we omit the intermediate
descents of this personage which for the most part are of uncertain appli
cation, we may ultimately reduce all the Buddhas, like all the Menus,
to two ; and these two are Adam and Noah.
Gautameh-Buddha ought, I think, evidently to be deemed the latter of
those patriarchs ; though, as is very commonly the case with gentile tra
ditions of Noah, his legend has been erroneously decorated with Enoch's
translation to heaven. The people of Ceylon have a notion, that before the
arrival of Gautameh their island was entirely overrun by evil spirits; and
that, when he became incarnate, he determined to expel them. For this
purpose he took three voyages to that country : and, having succeeded in
dislodging them, he planted the mark of his foot on the summit of the sacred
lull called Adams peak or Sammanelleh-Sree-Pade, and thence ascended to
heaven. The doctrine however of three other Buddhas had prevailed in
Ceylon previous to its being overrun by evil spirits : and its occupation by
' Asiat. Res. vol. vii. p. 406.
Pag. Idol.
1 Asiat. Res. vol. vii. p. 32, 33.

vol. ii.
$ U
338
Hook iv.
those malignant demons was the cause of the religion of Gautameh being
there promulgated.1
When we consider the character of this deity as established by other cir
cumstances, it will not be very difficult to ascertain the import of the pre
sent fiction. In the imagined evil spirits, that occupied Ceylon previous to
the mystically triplicated voyage of Gautameh and subsequent to the mani
festation of the former Buddhas, we recognize the Asoors of the Brahmens,
the Kharfesters of the Zend-Avesta, and the Titans of Greek and Egyp
tian mythology. They were those wicked antediluvians, that intervened be
tween the only two Buddhas whose existence was real and literal. Accord
ingly, they are destroyed by a hero-god ; who performs a voyage for the
express purpose of eradicating them and of introducing his own religion in
lieu of their impieties, and who at the close of his voyage plants his foot on
the summit of a lofty mountain ere he is miraculously translated to heaven.
What we are to understand by the voyage by the mountain, need scarcely
be pointed out. As Buddha flourished at the period of the deluge, and was
the husband and navigator of the ship Ila or Argha, the voyage undertaken
to destroy an impious race can only be the voyage of Noah. Whence it
will follow, that the mountain, on whose summit he completed his expedi
tion, is the local Mern or Paradisiacal Ararat of the Cingalese.
Agreeably to the prevailing belief in a succession of similar worlds, over
each of which presides a Buddha or Menu, the inhabitants of Ceylon sup
pose, that, towards the end of the present mundane system, there will be
long wars, unheard of crimes, and a portentous diminution of the length
of human life ; that a terrible rain will then sweep from the face of the earth
all except a small number of pious persons, who will receive timely notice of
the evil and thus be enabled to avoid it ; that the wicked, after being
drowned, will be changed into beasts; and that ultimately Maitri-Buddha
will appear and establish a new order of things.* The whole of this is
palpably a mere repetition of the history of the deluge applied to a yet
future epoch ; and it serves to confirm the opinion, that the multiplication
1 Asiat; Res. vol. vii. p. 40, 50.
339
both of Buddhas and of worlds has altogether originated from the succession
of Noah and the Noetic world to Adam and the Adamitic world.
III. Buddha-Gautameh is acknowledged by the Cingalese to be the same
divinity as the Somono-Kodom or Pooti-Sat of Siam and Pegu : but they
contend, that the title Somono-Kodom ought properly to be written Somo?ioGautamekS Such varieties occur perpetually in the orthography of the
oriental nations. Thus, in the present instance, Somono is pronounced either
Samano or Saman, Sumano or Suman : and thus Gautameh is indifferently
expressed Gautame or Godama, Kodom or Codum, Codam or Cadam.%
Throughout the Burma empire, the temples of Buddha are of a pyramidal
form : and, like all other buildings of that shape, they are copies of the sa
cred mount Meru or Mienmo; in other words, they are transcripts of
Ararat.' The statues of the god are sometimes small, but frequently of a
stupendous size. Dr. Buchanan saw one in old Ava, consisting of a single
solid block of white marble. It was in a sitting posture : and its fingers he
guessed to be about the length and thickness of a large man's leg and thigh.4
There is another of these statues, though by no means of equal size, in the
plain of Virapatnam. Mr. Gentil, who published his travels in the year
1 779, says, that it exactly resembles the Somono-Kodom of the Siamese.
Its head is of the same form; it has the same features; its arms are in the
same attitude ; and its ears are exactly similar. He made various inquiries
concerning it : and the answer, which he universally received, was, that it re
presented the god Baouth, who was now no longer regarded, since the
Brahmens had abolished his worship and had made themselves masters of
the people's faith.5 What the French traveller writes Baouth is evidently
no other than Bout, Budh, or Buddha : and the tradition respecting the di
vinity seems necessarily to imply, that the worship of Buddha was esta
blished in India prior to the superstition of the Brahmenists. Very fre
quently however the only representation of Somono-Kodom is a large black
* Asiat. Res. vol. vii. p. 413.
1 Symes's Embass. to Ava. vol. iL p. HO, 183, 222. Soe Plate III. Fig. 14.
4 Asiat. Res. vol. vii. p. 293, 295, 399. Se also Symes's Embass. to Ava. vol. it. p. 247",
S48. vol. iii. p. 213. and Plate II. Fig. 3.
CHAP' V,
340
stone.1 This is sometimes carved with various hieroglyphics, and is said to

exhibit the impression of his feet : for the Siamese, no less than the Cinga
lese, have a notion that the print of his foot was left in their country.* The
practice of representing Buddha, either by colossal images or by large black
stones, is of considerable importance : since it affords us two special marks,
by which we may trace his worship ; a worship however, perpetually melting,
as it were, into Brahmenism.
In many of the temples of Somono-Kodom there is a sculptured groupe
of female figures, exhibiting a princess with her attendants. The princess
is on her knees, and appears to be offering up her long hair to the deity.
Respecting the import of this sculpture the Burmas say, that once, when
Godama was in danger of perishing in a river, he was saved by a princess,
who threw him a rope made of her long hair.' A circumstance not very
dissimilar is introduced into the device of several ancient coins, stamped in
countries which lie far to the west of Siam. On those of Syria, the goddess
Cybele, or the mountain-born Magna Mater, appears seated upon a rock,
which rises out of the surrounding ocean. Sometimes a dove is perched
upon her head : and sometimes the fabulous Centaur, that well-known type
of the great father, is placed in the same situation. Near her not unfrequently blazes an altar : but a man is universally represented at her feet in
the midst of the water, imploring that assistance which the goddess from her
insular rock seems prepared to hold out to him.4 From the general history
and character of Buddha I have little hesitation in concluding, that the two
legends are fundamentally the same. The supposed princess is the arkite
Magna Mater resting on the summit of Ararat: and Godama saved from
the river is the man, whom the Syrian medals exhibit as plunged in the
ocean and as receiving assistance from the goddess of the rock.
IV. The high region to the north of India, which comprehends Cashmire, Boutan, Thibet, and Bokhara, was one of the first and most eminent
settlements of the Buddhic Chusas : and it still retains a spiritual preemi' Maui-. Hist, of Hind. vol. ii. p. 481. I ml. Ant. vol. iii. p. 31 .
* Asiat. Res. vol. vi. p. 295. Symes's Embass. vol. ii. p. 183, 197, 198.
* See several representations of these coins in Bryant's Anal. vol. ii. p. 386.
THE ORI61N OF PAGAN IDOLATRY.
341
nence, not very dissimilar to that once exercised by the Arabian caliphs or
the Roman pontiffs.
Agreeably to the doctrine of successive transmigratory appearances of the
great father to renovate or to govern or to reform the world, Thibet boasts
of a living and visible incarnation of Buddha. The name, by which this
human deity is usually known, is Teeshoo Lama or the priest Teeskoo : and he
is at once the spiritual and the civil superior of
throughout the wide extent of Tartary, there seem to
incarnations of Buddha, as well as this which may be
mount. Mr. Wilford mentions a Brahmen, who had
the country.
Yet,
be other pretended
esteemed the para
renounced his tribe,
and resolved to visit the living Fos. In pursuance of this determination, he

set forth on his travels ; and, in the country of Combo, adored the LamaCombo. Afterwards he proceeded to worship another living Fo, men
tioned in Bell's travels, and well known in the northern parts of India by
the name of Taranath ; the place of whose residence is marked in the
maps between the rivers Selinghei and Orgun. This last may be the Tatar
Fo, noticed by Le Compte; unless indeed we suppose him to include
Thibet within the limits of Tartary : which is not improbable, since he
professes to speak of the most famous seat of the god Fo particularly ve
nerated by the Chinese; a description exactly answering to the living Fo or
Teeshoo-Lama of Thibet, whom the monarch of China acknowledges as his
ecclesiastical superior and as his great spiritual father.1
V. The Fo of the Chinese is unquestionably the Buddha of the Hindoos.
This is evident, both from the circumstance of Moye being said to be the
mother of Fo, as Maya is the mother of Buddha ; and from the religious re
verence paid by the emperor to the Teeshoo-Lama as an incarnation of the
god Fo : because, since Buddha is the grand deity of Boutan and Thibet,
and since the Lama is adored as the living representative of Buddha ; as he
is also the living representative of the Chinese Fo, Buddha and Fo must
plainly be the same person.*
1 Asiat. Res. vol. i. p. 207220. vol. vi. p. 483, 484. Le Compte's China, p. 332.
* Asiat. Res. vol. ii. p. 375. When the Chinese deputies to Ava beheld the Burman god
Buddha-Gaudma, they immediately recognized him as their own national Fo, and worshipped
him accordingly. Symes's Embassy to Ava. vol. ii. p. 3 1 8.
cHAp.t.
342
THE ORIGIN OF PAGAN IDOI.ATBV.
1. It is not very difficult to trace the steps, by which the name of

Buddha has been transformed into Fo.
In Boutan and Thibet the word is pronounced But, Put, Bot, Pot,
Pout, and Poti; in Cochin-China, But ; and in Siam, Pout.1 Such varia
tions are according to those rules of etymology, which prevail more or less
throughout the whole world. B and P, D and T, OU and O and U, are
severally letters of the same organ, and therefore mutually interchangeable ;
while the final short vowel A or I is indifferently added or omitted, as an
Italianized mode of enunciation is adopted or rejected.
In the vernacular
dialect of Siam, the word experiences a yet further change : the second
consonant is quiescent, and Pout or Pot is pronounced Po ; just as the
French Mot is pronounced Mo.1 When Buddha was expressed by Pot,
and when Pot by the quiescence of its final consonant was sounded like Po,
the change from Po into Fo by a nation which could not pronounce the
letter P was natural and obvious : for F is merely P aspirated ; and the
sound will be the same, whether we write Fo or Pho. From a similar in
capacity of pronunciation, the Chinese have converted the Buddhic title
Amita, which in the Sanscrit denotes Immeasureable, into O-mi-to ;
and Maya, the Hindoo name of the god's mother, into Mo-ye}
2. The religion of Fo or Buddha is said to have been introduced into
China, subsequently to the Christian era, either from India or Ceylon or
Thibet ; most probably, I think, from the latter.4 Yet I greatly doubt,
whether it was then introduced for the first time. I am rather inclined to
believe, that the particular modification of ancient Buddhism, which is
viewed with such abhorrence by the intolerant Brahmenists, was the theo
logical system carried at that period into China ; and that the apostle 01
Buddhism thus modified was one, who had assumed the name, and who
claimed to be an incarnation, of the god ; an imposture perfectly in character
both with the theory and the practice of gentile mythology. Long before
the Christian era were the Chinese well acquainted with Fo : and this very
acquaintance would obviously facilitate the introduction of a system ; which,
1 Asiat. Res. vol. ix. p. 220. vol. vi. p. 260.
* Asiat. Res. vol. i. p. 170. vol. vi. p. 262. vol. ix. p. 41. Le Conopte's China, p. 319.
343
so far from being altogether novel, was but a modification, speciously perhaps called a reformation, of the faith inherited from their ancestors.
Fo, as Sir William Jones well remarks, and as I have already shewn to be
the case, is unquestionably the Buddha of Hindostan : but the great pro
genitor and reputed first emperor of the Chinese is also named by them
Fo-Hi ; of which compound word the second monosyllable denotes, we are
told, a Victim.1 Now the history of tins primeval Fo, sirnamed Hi or the
Victim, is such as plainly to shew, that he is the very same character as
Buddha, and consequently that he is the same as the god Fo; since the
identity of Fo and Buddha can scarcely be disputed. Hence, unless we un
warrantably suppose, that the Chinese new-modelled their history, and
placed Fo-Hi at the head of it, when, subsequently to the Christian era, they
first received the religion of Buddha : hence, I say, it necessarily appears to
follow, that under the name of Fo or Fo-Hi they had venerated Buddha
from the very commencement of their national existence ; and that it was
simply a modification of their ancient religion, which they admitted at a later
period either from India or Ceylon or Thibet.
3. But let us proceed to examine the legend of Fo-Hi.
This ancient personage is said to have been the first emperor of China :
and his character sufficiently demonstrates, that he must be referred to the
age of mythology, not to that of genuine history.
With respect to his
birth, we are told that his mother was the daughter of Heaven, and that she
was sirnamed Flower-loving.
As the nymph was walking alone on the bank
of a river with a similar name, she suddenly found herself encircled by a

rainbow. Soon after this she became pregnant : and, at the end of twelve
years, was delivered of a son radiant as herself ; who, among other titles,
had that of Sui, or Star of the year. That son was Fo-Hi. The Chinese
add, that he was born in the province of Xensi ; and that he was manifested
on the mountains of Chin immediately after that grand division of time,
which was produced by the deluge. They moreover relate, that he carefully
bred seven different kinds of animals, which he used to sacrifice to the
' Asiat. Res. vol. ii. p. 3/5.
CHAP' v.
344
iiook iv. great spirit of heaven and earth : and they have a notion, that his body was
that of a serpent, while his son Shin-Nungh had the head of an ox.1
All these particulars serve to identify Fo-Hi with Noah. He is esteemed
by the Chinese, as by all other ancient nations, the first of their kings. His
fabled grandfather, Heaven or Uranus or Arhan, is the same person as him
self, viewed only in a different relation to his allegorical mother. That mo
ther is the Ark : and she is feigned to have been walking near a river, at the
time of her conception ; because, as we have repeatedly seen, the holy river
of each pagan aation was a symbol of the deluge considered as retiring from
the mountain of the Moon or the paradisiacal Ararat. The flower, from
which both she and the river were named, I take to have been the lotos.
The rainbow requires no comment.
The twelve years of his mother's
gestation are twelve revolutions, I apprehend, not of the Sun, but of the
Moon : they are therefore the twelve months, during which Noah was
inclosed within the Ark. The title of Star of the year, borne by Fo-Hi,
brings to our recollection a very common accompaniment of the arkite god
and goddess. Chiun or Saturn, Astarte, Taschter, and the Dioscori, all had
their star : and I cannot refrain from thinking il probable, that the idea
originated from the appearance of a comet at the time of the deluge. The
seven classes of animals, out of which Fo-Hi was wont to offer sacrifice to
God, seem plainly to be the clean beasts and birds which Noah was ordered
to take with him into the Ark by sevens. His title of Victim has apparently a
mixed relation, partly to his being the first sacrificer, and partly to some
such story as that which the Hindoos tell of their victim Brahma ; a story
built perhaps on some primeval tradition of the future sacrificial self-devotion
of the seed of the woman.* And the fabled forms of himself and his my
thological son exhibit to us the symbols, under which the great father was
represented in every quarter of the globe.
The Chinese further relate of Fo-Hi, that, the Yellow river being wont
to inundate the whole country, he restrained its destructive overflowings with
* Asiat. Res. vol. ii. p. 375, 376. Martin. Hist. Sin. lib. i. p. 21.
p. 313. Couplet Praef. ad tab. chron. p. 3.
* Vide supra b. ii. c. 8. h III. 2.
<
Lc Compte's China."
345
proper embankments. A similar story is told of the Ganges: and the two
are not very unlike that of the Egyptian Prometheus and the overflowing of
the Nile.'
I have little doubt but that the same event is alluded to in all
of them.
4. Yet it may be said, that, although these matters prove Fo-Hi to be
Noah, they nofurther prove him to be the same as Buddha or Fo, than as
all the other chief gods are the same person as that deity. That is to say,
they are all fundamentally the same as Buddha, only because they are all
equally the great father.
As far as I can judge, Fo-Hi is no less intimately and immediately the
same as Fo or Buddha, than Guutameh or Sacya or Somono-Kodom :
whence I infer, that Buddhism must have been the primitive idolatry of
China, and that the religion introduced subsequent to the Christian era was
the same as what already existed there, except only that it had undergone
some novel modification. Let us see then, what arguments can be adduced
to prove the direct identity of Fo-Hi and Fo, and therefore by necessary
consequence the direct identity of Fo-Hi and Buddha.
What will first strike an inquirer is the palpable identity of the two appel
lations Fo and Fo-Hi : for the only difference between them is this; the
former is the name of the god in an uncompounded state, while the latter is
the very same name associated with a word which signifies Victim. Since
therefore Fo and Fo-Hi are equally Noah, so far as personality is concerned ;
the presumption is, that in each case the title Fo is the title Buddha ex
pressed agreeably to the Chinese mode of pronunciation. Hence it will
follow, that the first emperor of China is no other than Buddha both in name
and in character. But this is not the only argument. The Chinese story of
the birth of Fo-Hi bears so close a resemblance to one of the Hindoo stories
of the birth of Buddha, that they must have originated from a common
source. The nymph Rohini, who presides over the fourth lunar mansion,
was the favourite mistress of Soma or the masculine genius of the Moon.
One of her titles is Cumudanayaca or She who delights in the water-Jlower :
and the particular water-flower, from which she takes her title, is a species
* Asiat. Res. vol. vi. p. 478.
Pag. Idol.
Diod. Bibl. lib. i. p. 16.

vol. ii.
2 X
346
of lotos that blossoms in the night. Their offspring was Buddha, the sidereal
regent of the planet Mercury.1 Thus it appears, that Fo-Hi and Buddha
are alike described as the offspring of a nymph celebrated under the appella
tion of The flower-loving ; an arbitrary coincidence, which in itself might
be deemed sufficient to establish the point of their proper identity.
5. If then Fo-Hi be in every respect the very same as Buddha, it seems to
me almost inevitably to follow, that Buddhism in some form must have been
the religion of China from the very first.
This will account satisfactorily for the ready acquiescence in what has
usually been esteemed the earliest introduction of Buddhism into that vast
empire, an introduction placed after the Christian era : the Chinese did not
receive a nexv religion, but were only led to embrace certain modifications or
corruptions of that theology which was already familiar to them.
Of the
particulars indeed of that theology we can glean but little : yet, when we
consider the evident identity of Fo- Hi and Buddha, I cannot but think it far
more easy to suppose, that the Chinese, in adopting the superstition of Fo,
adopted only what they deemed an improvement of their old system ; than
to believe that a large proportion of a great empire, whicli prided itself on
its remote antiquity, was led, in consequence (as it is alledged) of its com
mercial intercourse with Hindostan and Ceylon, to reject its primeval reli
gion in favour of the religion of foreigners.*
1 Asiat. Res. toI. ii. p. 375, 3?6. vol. i. p. 162. vol. iii. p. 258.
* The excellent Sir William Jones seems plainly to be not a little embarrassed by the hypo
thesis of Buddhism be'mgjirst introduced into China after the Christian era.
The importation, says he, of a new religion into China, in the Jirst century of our era,
must lead us to suppose, that the former system, whatever it was, had beenfound inadequate to
the purpose of restraining the great body of the people from those offences against conscience
and Virtue, which the civil power could not reach : and it is hardly possible, that without such
restrictions any government could long have subsisted with felicity ; for no government can
long subsist without equal justice, and justice cannot be administered without the sanctions of
religion.
The inference ihereforc to be drawn from these premises is, that a considerable proportion of
the Chinese including the governing powers, in the first century of our era, finding the political
insufficiency of the religion of their fathers, deliberately and philosophically renounced it;
and that, in hopes of mending the matter, they made the atheistical superstition of the later
347
On the whole therefore I am inclined to conjecture, that the Chinese

brought their ancient theology directly from Babel : but that, at a compara
tively late period, some one of the Samanean hierophants assumed the name
and character of Buddha, and laboured to overset the whole system of the
Brahmens ; that this produced a struggle and a persecution ; and that the
persecution drove the modern Buddhists into various distant regions. Such
an opinion, the latter part of which is adopted by Sir William Jones, seems
to be confirmed by the assertions of the Brahmens themselves ; for the im
postor, who new-modelled the Samanean faith, is said to have taken the
name of Dharma, which is a title of Buddha : and it undoubtedly reconciles
a contradiction, which cannot otherwise be very easily accounted for. The
Brahmens universally speak of the Buddhists with all the malignity of an in
tolerant spirit: yet the most orthodox among them consider Buddha himself
as an Avatar of Vishnou, and esteem him the Trimurti-Om or BrahmaVishnou-Siva united.1
6. In Cashgar, as we have seen, Buddha is sometimes called MachodarNath or the sovereign prince in the belly of the fish. Whether the Chinese
have borrowed this precise name does not appear : but, according to the
recently-mentioned Brahmen who had abjured his caste, they have a statue
of the god in that character. It is placed in a temple near the wall of Pekin,
and worshipped along with Maha Cala or Great Time ; who is the same as
Iswara, Satyavrata, and Cronus.
In one part of the temple is shewn the
' Charan-Pad or the impression of the foot of Datta or Datt-Atreya ; just as

the Cingalese pretend to exhibit it on the summit of Adam's peak, and the
Burmas on a large stone covered with hieroglyphics.* Hence it is evident,
that Datta is one of the names of Buddha or Somono-Kodom ; because the
legend of the impressed foot belongs to the history of Buddha. But Datta,
as Mr. Wilford justly observes and as I shall have occasion hereafter to
Buddhists the paramount religion of the court and the nation. I can with difficulty believw,
either the occurrence of so unparallelled a circumstance, or the superior efficacy of an atheist
ical system over any other (however bad it might be) to subserve the purposes of government
by its action on the consciences of men. Asiat. Res. vol. ii. p. 376.
1 Asiat. Res. vol. i. p. 284, 285. vol. ii. p. 123, 124. vol, iii. p. 1J)6. vol. vi. p. 262.
* Asiat. Res. .yol.il. p. 482, 483.
348
THE ORIGIN OF PAGAN ffiOtATHY".
point out more at large, is clearly the Tat, Taut, or Thoth, of Egypt and
Phenicia.
VI. The religion of Buddha has equally spread itself into Cochin-China,
Tonquin, Japan, and the most remote parts of Tartary.1
Japan, like China, is said to have received the religion of Buddha or
Budsdo subsequent to the Christian era : but I cannot refrain from suspect
ing, that the real mode, in which it was received by the two countries was
the very same ; that no properly novel theology was imported, but only a
modification of that ancient superstition to which they had long been pre
viously addicted.
Kfempfer says with much propriety, that, both from the
affinity of the names and from the similarity of the religion, he has no doubt,
that the Budsdo or Fo-Toke of Japan is the same as the Buddha of Hindostan.*
Sometimes the Japanese call him Siaka ; which appellation is no other
than Saca, Sacya, or Xaca, as this common title of Buddha is variously

expressed : sometimes they designate him by the appellation of Daibod, or
Dtva-Bod, or the divine Buddha : sometimes they call him Abbuto or Fa
ther Buto : and sometimes again they denominate him Amita, which is also
one of his Hindoo titles, by the Chinese pronounced O-Mi-To. They
ascribe to him a holy book, which they suppose to have been brought over
to Japan on the back of a wliite horse: they represent him, like the Buddha
of Ava, by a gigantic figure sitting cross-legged in the calix of the tarate or
lotos : they suppose him to be the god of the ocean ; whence mariners are
wont to tie small coins to a piece of wood and to throw them into the sea as
an offering to him, in order that they may obtain propitious winds and a safe
voyage : and they esteem him, according to the universal persuasion of the
ancient hierophants, the patron and protector of human souls, deeming him
more particularly the god and father of those who happily transmigrate from
this world into the Elysian abodes of the blessed.' .
In Cochin-China, Buddha is multiplied into three divinities, uch in the
same manner as he is said to comprehend in his own person the triple god
Brahma-Vishnou-Siva. This arrangement is by no means uncommon : and
1 Ksempfer's Japan, book iii. c. 6. p. 241.
1 Ibid. p. 247, 243. book v. p. 468, 552, 553.
THE OUIGIN OF PAGAN IDOLATRY.
349
the triad of Buddha, like all the other triads of the Gentiles, relates, as is
evident from the whole tenor of his history, to the three sons of Noah
viewed as a reappearance of the three sons of Adam.1
VII. The triplication of Buddha has produced three different sects of
Buddhists; who severally worship their favourite divinity under' the names of
Buddha or Gautama, Jain or Jina, and Arhan or Mahiman. Of these
kindred religionists, the votaries of Buddha, by whom we are to understand
(I apprehend) the proper Buddhists, are found in Thibet and other vast re
gions to the north and east of it : the followers of Jain are chiefly dispersed
on the borders of Hindostan : and the adherents of Arhan, who are said to
have been once the most powerful of the three, now principally reside in
Siam and other kingdoms of the eastern peninsula. * There is sufficient
proof however, that Jain and Arhan are ultimately the same as Buddha,
just as Brahma and Vishnou are ultimately the same as Siva : and the three
viewed conjointly form that triad of great gods, which was thought to be
produced by the mysterious self-triplication of the universal father.'
VIII. Many are the titles, by which Buddha is known to his votaries.
An enumeration of them may prove useful in further discussing the present
subject.
1. His special name Buddha is variously pronounced and expressed
Boudh, Bod, Bot,
But, Bad, Budd, Buddou, Boutta, Bota, Budsdo,
Pot, Pout, Pota, Poti, and Pouti. The Siamese make the final T ov D
quiescent, and sound the word Po : whence, as we have seen, the Chinese
still further vary it to Pho or Fo. In the Tamulic dialect, the name is pro
nounced Poden or Pooden : whence the city, which once contained the tem
ple of Sumnaut or Suman-Nath, is called Patten-Sumnaut. The broad,
sound of the U or Ou or Oo passes in the variation Patten into A, pro
nounced Ah or Au : and, in a similar manner, when the P is sounded B,
we meet with Bad, Bat, and Bhat. All these are in fact no more than a

1 Asiat. Res. vol. iii. p. 195, 201.
1 On this point, see Asiat. Res. vol. i. p. 248, 285. vol. ii. p. 122, 369376. vol. iii. p. 51,
193, 195. 196, 201. vol. vi. p. 295, 463, 483, 525530. vol. vii. p. 414. vol. viii. p. 305,
3S0, 360. vol. ix. p. 143, 145, 173, 210217. 222, 256, 259, 264, 272, 280, 281. Moor's
Hind. Panth. p. 223, 237, 253, 256.
CHAP- *,
350
boob iv.
ringing of changes on the cognate letters B and P, T and D ' Another of

his names is Saman, which is varied into Somon, Somono, Samana, SumanNath, and Sarmana. From this wac borrowed the sectarian appellation of
Samaritans or Sarmaneans1A third is Gautama; which is indifferently
expressed Gautameh, Godama, Godam, Codam, Cadam, Cardam and
Cardama. This perpetually occurs in composition with the last as SomonoCodom or Samaria-Gautama*A fourth is Saca, Sacya, Siaka, Shaka,
Xaca, Xaca- Muni or Saca-Menu, and Kia which is the uncompounded
form of Sa-Kia*A fifth is Dherma, or Dharma, or Dherma-Rajah*
A sixth is Hermias, Her-Moye, or Heri-Maya6A seventh is Datta,
Datt-Atreya, That-Dalna, Date, Tat or Tot, Deva-Tat or DevaTwashta 1An eighth is Jain, Jina, Chin, Jain-Deo, Cftin-Deo, or JainEsuar*A ninth is Arhan9K tenth is Mahi-Man, Mai-Man, or (if
Om be added) Mai-Man-Om10An eleventh is Min-Eswara, formed by the
same title Min or Man or Menu joined to Eswara" A twelfth is Gomat
or Gomat-Eswara 11A thirteenth, when he is considered as Eswara or Siva,
is Ma-Esa or Har-Esa ; that is to say, the great Esa or the lord Esa "
A fourteenth is Dagon or Dagun or Dak-Po'*A fifteenth is Tara-Nath,sAnd a sixteenth is Arca-Bandhu or Kinsman of the Sun.'6
2. Among the ancients, it was a common practice for the ministers of a
* Asiat. Res. vol. vi. p. 260, 262. vol. ix. p. 220. vol. i. p. 162, l63, l66, l67, 1/0. vol.
vii. p. 35, 398.
* Asiat. Res. vol. vii. p. 38, 413.
* Asiat. Res. vol. vii. p. 38, 413, 414. vol. iii. p. 199. vol. vi. p. 259.
4 Asiat. Res. vol. ii. p. 123. vol. vi. p. 262, 263. Kacmpfer's Japau. p. 247. Hamilton's
account of East-Ind. vol. ii. p. 57.
5 Asiat. Res. vol. ix. p. 83. vol. vii. p. 39- vol. vi. p. 264.
8 Comp. Asint. Res. vol. ix. p. 212, 215.
7 Asiat. Res. vol. vi. p. 483, 263. vol. v. p. 26l. vol. x. p. 59* Asiat. Res. vol. ix. p. 143, 303, 272, 280, 259. vol. vi. p. 526.
* Comp. Asiat. Res. vol. vii. p. 414. vol. vi. p. 295, 483. vol. viii. p. 305. vol. iii. p. 195,
196.
" Moor's Hind. Panth. p. 256.
11 Moor's Hind. Panth. p. 253, 256.
" Asiat. Res. vol. i. p. 284, 285.
14 Hamilton's account of East-Ind. vol. ii. p. 57- Symes's Embass. to Ava. vol. ii. p. 110.
15 Asiat. Re*, vol. vi. p. 124.
'8 Asiat. Res. vol. ii. p. 124.
THE ORIGIN OF PAGAN ITJOLATRY.

god to call themselves by the name of the deity whom they venerated.
351
Such
accordingly was the mode of distinction, which the votaries of Brahme and
of Buddha adopted, probably from very remote antiquity. As the Sama
neans confessedly derived their title from Samana or Buddha ; so it is most
natural to conclude, that the Brahmens or Brachmans borrowed their appel
lation from Brahme, the parent of their Trimurti Brahma-Vishnou-Siva.
These two sects are mentioned by more than one of the Greek writers : and
we are told, that Samana or Somona is still the name, by which the god,
the priests of the god, and thence the whole body of the Buddhists, are alike
distinguished.1
Porphyry does not seem to have been aware of any such rivalship and
animosity, as that which subsists between the present Brahmenists and
Buddhists ; for he speaks of the Brachmans and Samaneans as being only
two sects of those Indian divines, whom the Greeks were wont jointly to
designate by the common appellation of Gymnosophists. Hence, as I have
already observed, it may be doubted, whether the impostor, who introduced
into the ancient Buddhic theology those alterations which made it so obnox
ious to the Brahmenists, flourished earlier than the first century after the
Christian era. Porphyry appears also, in some measure, to have confounded
the Samaneans with those enthusiastic devotees, who are now called Sanyassis ; while yet his account of the Brahmens is curiously accurate.1
Much the same remark applies to the account, which Strabo gives of these
two sects. He truly observes, that the system of the Brachmans was more
orderly and coherent than that of the Samaneans : and he describes the
latter, whom with a slight variation he denominates Germanes, as leading an
eremetical life in the woods and as voluntarily submitting to the most painful
austerities.'
Clemens Alexandrinus, though he also makes a certain branch of the
Samaneans or (as he calls them) Sarmaneans to be plainly the same as the
modern Sanyassis, distinguishes them from the Brahmens with a much
greater degree of precision than Porphyry : for, after he has said, like that
1 Strab. Gcog. lib.xv. p. 712, 713, 714.
* Porphyr. dc abstin. lib. iv. 17.
CHAP. v.
352
uook iv.
THE OHIGIK OF PAGAN IDOLATRY.
author, that the Brahmens and Sarmaneans are two sects of Gyinnosophists,
he adds, that the latter obey the precepts of Butta, whom on account of his
holiness they venerate as a god.1 Neither Strabo nor Clemens, any more
than Porphyry, give the least intimation that the two sects were then hostile
to each other.
IX. The high country of Cashgar, Boutan, Thibet, and Bokhara, which
has been shewn to be the proper geographical Meru both of the Brahmenists
and the Buddhists, was one of the chief settlements of the Chusas or Scuths,
and therefore one of the principal and earliest seats of the unmixed super
stition of Buddha, to which that great family was ever peculiarly devoted.
Yet it was not absolutely the cradle of the Samanean theology. The
primeval empire of Nimrod and the Cushim comprehended the central part
of that fertile region ; which, when viewed at its greatest extent, was still
denominated Iran or Cusha-dwip within : and the mountaineers of Persia,
to which the name of Iran seems more peculiarly to belong, were evidently
of Scuthic extraction. Hence, as both Brahmenism and Buddhism branched
out from Babylonia to every quarter of the globe, and as the long-lived
Cuthic empire was the earliest empire of Iran, we may expect to find a
large intermixture of Buddhism in the old Persic theology.*
1 Such, I am persuaded is the meaning of Clemens, though his language is somewhat ambi
guous, so far as the idiom is concerned. I subjoin the passage.
Aittw Se fovrwy -to yevo;' oi u.cv Sajjaavai ovuruiv, o! Ss
xaXeu/Aoi. Ka
ruiy 'Zxffitxvwv oi KWofitot itgo<ra.yogtuop.tvot ovrs ntoXsi; oixwviv, ours <rriya.; eôva-iv, $tvfy<ov Se apfuyvvyrat <p\otot;, xat axgoSgva. a-irovyrat, km JJwf rats XeS'rt ''tty0UITiv' 00 7af-5,'
cu vatSovotiuv, t<ra<rty, wuits^ oi yvy Eyxfaryrat xa*ou/x*vw twt h ruiv \vlu>y oi rots Bovrra
riiHoitevot naoa.yyt'Kya<ny, iy St' vrfiffiotyv <rtp.voTqtos tt; fleftv rr(jar;x<ri. Clem. Alex.
Strom, lib. i. p. 305.
Some have supposed, that, after speaking of the Brachmans and 'he Sarmaneans, Clemens
insinuates, that, besides these, there are certain of the Indians who venerate Buddha ; thus
itt effect saying, that the Brachmans and the Sarmaneans did not worship Buddha. But, when
we consider that Samana is a name of Buddha and that his votaries are still called Samana
or Samaneans, it seems also necessary to conclude, that the Samanians or Sarmaneans of
Porphyry and Clemens are the same as the modern Samana ; and consequently, that the
clause Bto-t Ss rwv \v$<uv ought to be rendered these are they of the Indians, not there are also
some of the Indians.
% Vide infra book vi. c. 2.
THE ORIOIN OF PAGAN IDOLATRY.
353
From the earliest times, Bactria or Bokhara was closely connected with
the high lands of Persia : for the inhabitants of each district were descended
from the same enterprizing race ; and Zoroaster himself, the great prophet
of Iran, is most commonly said to have resided in the lofty region of
Bactria, which was likewise the favourite haunt of the Magi. But Zo
roaster and Buddha are equally Noah : and the Magi seem clearly to be the
same race as the Buddhic Maghas or Moghas of Magadha ; who derive their
name from Maga the grandson of Twashta, and among whom Buddha,
whom we must identify both with Maga and Twashta, is feigned to have been
born.1
Accordingly, both Cyril and Clemens Alexandrinus agree in telling
us, that the Samaneans were the sacerdotal order both in Bactria and in
Persia.* But the Samaneans were the priests of Saman or Buddha ; and it
is well known, that the sacerdotal class of Bactria and Persia were the
Magi : therefore the Magi and the Samaneans must have been the same j
and consequently Buddha or Maga or Saman must have been venerated in
those regions.
With this conclusion, the mythologic history of the Zend-Avesta, which
I have before had occasion to discuss, will be found in perfect accordance.
The name of the most ancient bull, that was united with the first man
Key-Umursh, is said to have been Aboudad.
But Aboudad, like the
Abbuto of the Japanese, is plainly nothing more than Ab-Boud-Dat or
father Buddh-Datta.
This Aboudad is the first Buddha or Adam, who is
described as being prior in time to Buddha-Gautama or Noah : for he is

succeeded by a second man-bull, named Taschter, who flourishes with three
subordinate coadjutors at the period of the deluge.
Nor is this the only proof of the Buddhism of the ancient Persians.
According to the Dabistan of Mohsan, they held, that the first monarch of
Iran and of the whole world was Mahabad ; that Mahabad divided the
people into four orders, the religious, the military, the commercial, and the
servile ; that he received from the creator a sacred book in a heavenly lan
guage ; and that there either had been or would be fourteen Mahabads
' Asiat. Res. vol. ix. p. 3J, 74, 80.

* Cyril. Oper. vol. ii. p. 133. Clem. Alex. Strom, lib. i. p. 305.
Pag. Idol.
vol. 11.
2Y
CHAP. v.
354
Hook iv.
apparent at different intervals.
Sir William Jones remarks, that the name
Mahabad is Sanscrit, and that the person so called is indisputably the same
as Menu. He is, I believe, perfectly right in his opinion : for Maha Bad
is the great Buddh ; and the fourteen Mahabads are the fourteen Menus, of
whom the principal are Menu-Swayambhuva or Adam and Menu-Satyavrata or Noah.1
Agreeably to the usual practice of calling the priests after the names of their
gods, as the ministers of Saman or Maga were in Persia and Bactria generally
denominated Samaneans or Magas ; so the head of the hierarchy, as the
immediate representative of the great father who was ever esteemed the prim
eval Maga or Druid, assumed the loftier title of Eas-Bad or Mu-Bad,
which denotes the chief or the great Buddha.1,
X. From the same elevated region of Cashgar and Bokhara and northern
Persia, which coincides with the tract denominated by the classical writers
the Indian Caucasus, a large colony of those, whom the Hindoos call Sacaa
or Socasenas and Chusas or Cushas, gradually penetrated into Europe,
where their descendants have been known in more modern times by the
names of Saxons and Goths. These are the progeny of those warlike
oriental tribes ; which, in the course of their westward progress from upper
India, the Greeks celebrated under the appellation of Saca and Scuths, and
which in due time were destined to subvert the Roman empire and to found
a republic of independent states upon its ruins.'
1 . As the Goths and Saxons then emigrated from the Indian Caucasus,
and as the Scaldic traditions of their descendants positively declare the wor
ship of their god Woden to have been brought into Europe by a colony of
Asse or Asiatics : it seems impossible not to conclude, that Woden was the
identical divinity, whom their ancestors had venerated while yet occupying
their original settlements in the east
But that divinity was certainly
Buddha : for Buddha has ever been the god of the Chusas of mount Meru.
* Asiat. Res. vol. ii. p. 58 60.

1 See Vallancey's Vindic. apud Collect, de reb. Hibern. vol. iv. numb. 14. p. 429, 457.
* See below book vi. c. 4 . II.
*
. ,
355
We are compelled therefore to believe even a priori, that Buddha and Woden
are the same deity, and consequently that the theology of the Gothic and
Saxon tribes was a modification of Buddhism.
To this conclusion it may naturally be objected, that the character of the
ferocious and military Woden bears no great resemblance to that of the mild
and philosophic Buddha whose religion prohibits the shedding even of animal
blood.
Such an objection, however plausible, admits of a sufficiently easy an
swer. In the first place, I know not why we are bound to suppose that the
very ancient theology of the Buddhists was always distinguished by xtspresent
characteristics : on the contrary, it seems probable, that those characteristics
were imposed upon it at a comparatively late period.1
And, in the second
place, even if we admit that the Buddhic theology was always a theology
abhorrent of blood ; yet, that the military tribes of Cuthic extraction in the
course of a long period of erratic warfare should have transformed the mild
Indian deity into the god of battles, is nothing more than might have been
obviously anticipated from their peculiar circumstances. Superstition ever
adapts its divinities to its own favourite pursuits : and the same humour,
which led the Christian Goths of Europe to venerate St. James and St.
Dennis and St. George as accomplished cavaliers, would induce their ad
venturous pagan ancestors to worship the blood-abhorrent Sacya under the
new but more appropriate character of the sanguinary Woden. Different
in short, as these two deities may now appear in the creed of -a Hindoo
Buddhist and in that of a Gothic chieftain, there is yet sufficient evidence to
prove that they are one god both in name and in person.
2. With respect to name, Wod or Vod is a mere variation of Bod ; and
/AWen is simply the Tamulic mode of pronouncing Buddha: for, in that
mode of enunciation, Buddha is expressed Pooden or Poden ; and Poden is
undoubtedly the same word as Voden or fVoden.1 Sir William Jones, ac1 On this supposition however, it must have been imposed previous to the days of Pytha
goras : because the system of that philosopher is palpably a modification of blood-abhorring
Buddhism.
* Vide supra, book iv. c. 5. $ VIII. 1,
c,tYP'
356
nooi iv.
cordingly, hesitates not to identify the Gothic Woden with the Indo-Scythic
Buddha : and, so far as I can judge, he is perfectly right in his decision. 1
3. But etymology, though an useful auxiliary, can never in itself be
deemed sufficient to establish a matter of fact : we must therefore inquire,
whether the person as well as the name of Buddha can be shewn to cor
respond with that of Woden, however in one characteristic the two godg
may differ from each other.
This will lead me to touch upon the history of
the Scandinavian divinity in connection with that of the Cuthic Buddha.

The Buddha of the east is ascribed to the time of the deluge ; is viewed
as a triplicated divinity ; and is said to have overwhelmed the Asoors by
means of a prodigious inundation, which the Earth poured forth from the
central abyss.
In a similar manner it was supposed by the Scythian
mythologists, that the whole impious race of the giants perished in a mighty
flood, except one who escaped in his bark ; that, at this period, a vast cow
was produced; and that from the cow was born Bure, the father of Bore,
who begat three sons Woden and Vile and Ve.* The names of Bure and
Bore are so evidently the same, that we need not scruple to identify the two
persons who respectively bear them.
Hence the purport of the legend will
be, that, at the epoch of the general deluge, a patriarch and his three sons,
afterwards worshipped as the great gods of the Gentiles, were born from an
immense ship which all nations agreed to symbolize by a cow.
In the oriental mythology, Buddha is acknowledged to be the same charac
ter as Menu-Satyavrata, and is said to have married Ila the daughter of that
personage, that is to say, his own daughter : whence Ila is reputed to have
been the consort of her own father Menu. The import of this legend has
already been considered ; and we find something similar to it in the fabulous
history of Woden. That divinity is the son of him who was born from the
* Edda Fab. iii. Bore and his triple offspring are the same personages as that Mannus and
his three sons, who were venerated in the time of Tacitus by the Scuthic Germans. Man
nus is said to have been the offspring of Tuisto, the child of the Earth. I need scarcely
observe, that Mannus is Menu or Noah, and that Tuisto is the elder Teut or Adam. Tacit,
de mor. Germ. 2.
357
symbolical cow ; and he is also described as being the husband of the

goddess Frea. Now, in exact accordance with those mythological notions
which so widely prevailed relative to a certain mystic intercommunion
between the Earth and the Ark ; as the word Ida or Ila denotes the Earth
or the World, as the goddess who bears that appellation is the same
personage as the ship Argha, and as she is at once the wife and the daughter
of Buddha or Menu : so Frea was by the Goths denominated the mother
Earth and the mother of the gods, and was supposed to be the offspring no
less than the consort of Woden.1 The very name indeed of Ida was
perfectly well known to our Scythian ancestors, as might naturally be
expected from their eastern extraction : for, if the Hindoos call the circular
top of their holy -bill Ida-vratta, the Goths equally bestowed the appellation
of Ida on the high central plain which was thought to be tenanted by their
diluvian hero-gods.*
Considered as Menu-Satyavrata, Buddha is Sraddadeva or the god of
obsequies ; and, as such, he is represented under the name of Nara-vahana,
as the conveyer of souls in a large vessel over the infernal river.* The
character of Woden is not dissimilar. He was thought to receive the souls
of those who bravely perished in battle, and in conjunction with his consort
Frea to conduct them to the mansions of the blessed.* He was also feigned
to have himself descended into Hades, and thence to have returned in safety
and triumph."* In short, according to the general notion entertained of the
arkite god, he was plainly esteemed a Stygian or infernal deity.
Buddha is described, as being the inventor of letters, as the conveyer of
knowledge, and as the person who received a sacred book from heaven
which he communicated to mankind. In like manner Woden appears, not
only as the god of war, but likewise as the god of literature. To him is
attributed the discovery of the Runic characters: and he is reported to have
been eminently skilled in the art of writing, as well for the common pur
poses of life, as for the operations of magic. Hence an ancient Gothic
poet, cited by Bartholin, speaks of the Runes as being letters which the
Edda. Fab. v.
1 Edda. Fab. vii.
* Mallet's North. Ant. c. vi. p, 89, 94.
3 Asiat. Res. vol. ix. p. 173.

5 Ibid. toI. ii. p. 220, 221.
CHA*. T-
358
great ancient traced, which the gods composed, which Woden the sovereign
of the gods engraved.1
The eastern Buddhists sometimes gave a horse to their deity: for that
animal was early arid very widely adopted, as one of the sacred arkite
symbols ; whence originated the many fables of the great father and mother
assuming the forms of a horse and a mare. Thus the Japanese have a
temple of Buddha, which they call the temple of the white horse ; because
the holy book of their god is supposed to have been brought over on an
animal of that colour.1
The Gothic Buddhists, in a similar manner,
ascribed a wonderful horse to Woden. It had eight legs : and it was pro
duced, when the gods were in great danger from the attacks of those impious
giants who were swept away by the deluge. Mounted on this horse, Woden,
the father of inchantments, descended into the infernal regions ; and was
reconveyed by him to light and life from the drear abode of Hela.' The
horse of Woden, like the horse of the Japanese Budsdo, was, I have no
doubt, what the old Scandinavians were wont to call a horse of the sea, by
which they meant a ship : and that ship was the Ark or the Ceres Hippa of
Greek and British mythology. Nor did the Gothic hierophants shadow out
the primeval vessel solely under hieroglyphics : we find that same direct and
literal allusion to it, which occurs so perpetually in the superstition of the
Gentiles. As the Egyptians depicted their hero-gods, not standing on dry
land, but sailing together in a ship; and as Buddha under the name of
Iswara floated on the surface of the deluge in the ship Argha, and under
the name of Menu-Satyavrata was preserved in an ark when the rest of
mankind perished by water: so the Goths assigned to their deities, of
1 Mallet's North. Ant. c. xiii. p. 371, 372.
1 Kaempfer's Japan, p. 247.
1 Edda. Fab. xxi, iv. Bartholin, lib. iii. c 2. apud Mallet, vol. ii. p. 220. From the co
lour of the horse of Woden or Buddha, as it is still emblazoned in the arms of Saxony, I
conclude, that in the west as well as in the east it was thought to be white. A similar inference
may be drawn from the stupendous representation of the same mystic animal in the English
vale of the white horse. Mr. Gray, in his beautiful poetical translation of the descent of
Woden speaks of this horse as being coal-black : but the epithet is entirely his own addition ;
the original, as preserved by Bartholin, does not define the colour,
359
whom, Woden was chief, a wonderful ship, which with ease contained them
all when
vourable
There
Woden ;
completely armed, and which never failed to be wafted by a fa

wind to the place of its destination.1
are yet two other points of coincidence between Buddha and
which, as they are both purely of an arbitrary nature, carry with
them the greater weight of evidence.

Nothing more singularly marks the superstition of Buddha, than a belief
that the deity left in various quarters of the globe impressions of his gigantic
foot. He is said to have travelled into very remote countries, and generally
to have bequeathed to his votaries one of these sacred marks. Thus his
footstep is shewn by the Cingalese on the top of Adam's peak, by the Siamese
of the Burma empire on a large stone covered with hieroglyphics, by the
Chinese in the temple of Machodar-Nath, by the Arabs on a stone at
Mecca: in short,
numerous are the temples of Buddha, in which the
priests exhibit an ill-formed impression of the holy foot.'
This piece of
superstition was not forgotten by the Goths in their progress westward.

Herodotus concludes his curious account of the ancient Scythians by in
forming us, that near the river Tyras or Dneister they shewed an impression
of the foot of Hercules. It was cut in a rock, and resembled the footstep of
a man : but its size was gigantic, for it was no less than two cubits in length.4
This Gothic Hercules was undoubtedly the Cuthic Buddha, metamorphosed
into the god of military prowess, and venerated under the name of JVoden.
The identity of the two divinities appears also from another point of ar
bitrary coincidence. In the east, Buddha gives his name to the fourth day
of the week, which from him is called Bhood-War : in the west, Woden has
* Edda. Fab. xxii.
1 Asiat. Res. vol. vi. p. 295, 483. vol. vii. p. 414. vol. viii. p. 305. Symes's Embass. to
Ava. vol. ii. p. 183, 197, 198.
* Herod. Hist. lib. iv. c. 82. Mr. Wilford says, that the people of the country, where this
footstep of Hercules was shewn, were certainly Buddhists, and that their high-priest who
resided on mount Gocajon at present named Casjon was believed to be regenerate, exactly
like the Lama of Thibet. Asiat. Res. vol. iii. p. 196". If this assertion be well-founded, it
would indeed establish the point of the Scuths being Buddhists, which may reasonably be
concluded in the way of argument and induction. '
360
book it.
communicated bis name to the very same day, which by all the Gothic
nations that have eminently retained the language of their ancestors is
designated by an appellation similar to the English Wednesday
Thus, I think, there is sufficient evidence, that the religion of the Goths
or Scythians was originally pure Buddhism, that Woden is the same as
Buddha, and that the religion was corrupted and the character of the god
in some measure altered during their progress westward precisely in such a
manner as might be expected from a warlike and roving people.
Whether
they migrated literally under the command of a chieftain or succession of

chieftains, who assumed the title and claimed to be incarnations of Buddha,
or figuratively under the supposed protection of the hero-god of their fathers;
is a question, which at this distance of time cannot be positively determined.
The genius of Buddhism renders the first supposition by no means impro
bable : at least I think, that Mr. Pinkerton is far too positive in his mode
of advocating the second.5
XI. The Buddhism of the Goths will explain a point of considerable
difficulty, in ancient mythology.
The religion of the Celts, as professed in Gaul and Britain, is palpably
the same as that of the Hindoos and Egyptians ; the same also as that of
the Canaanites, the Phrygians^ the Greeks, and the Romans : but the reli
gion of the Goths, whose tribes previous to their final establishment in the
western empire spread themselves irregularly over the countries which
intervene between the north of Hindostan and the eastern boundary of
Europe, is manifestly of a very different school ; though the same herodivinities, the great father and the great mother, are equally venerated
under each system. Now the wonder is, that the Britons and the Hindoos
at the two extremities of the line should have adopted the very same super
stition, and should have been theologically united at some remote period by
1 Asiat. Res. vol. i. p. 162. vol. iii. p. 562. Maurice's Hist, of Hind. vol. ii. p. 481. The
fourth day of the week, the Bhood-War of Hindostan, is called in Icelandic Wontdag, in
Swedish Odinsdag, in low Dutch Waensdag, in Anglo-Saxon Wodentdag, and in modern
English Wednesday ; that is to say, the day of Woden or Odin. Junii Etymol. Anglic,
fol. 1748.
* Pinkerton's Dissert, on the Goths, p. 180, 181.
36"1
a very frequent intercourse ; and yet that the Scuths, who occupied the CHAP, vmiddle of the line and who therefore intervened between those two nations,
should have professed a religion of a materially different contexture.1
The preceding discussion will in some measure account for the circum
stance. Those tribes, that either remained in Babylonia or that emigrated
from it in a mixed state, chiefly advocated the Brahmenical system : while
those, that retired from Shinar in an unmixed state, preferred the more
simple theology of Buddha. Now the mixed tribes were universally so
mixed, by being under the rule of a Cuthic priesthood and nobility : and
the unmixed tribes were altogether composed of certain Cuthim or Scuthim,
who under some impressions of disgust had separated themselves from their
brethren. The Celts then and the Hindoos, being equally mixed tribes,
professed the same mode of religion : while the unmixed Goths or Cuths,
being descended from a race of pure and genuine Buddhists, pertinaciously
refused to abandon the peculiar theology of their forefathers. Yet, since
the military and sacerdotal castes both of India and of Britain were of the
same great Cuthic family as themselves, they freely allowed the passage of
devout pilgrims whom they recognized as their brethren by a common
descent from one patriarchal ancestor.1
1 . The Goths then brought with them into Europe pure Buddhism ; that
is to say, pure so far as it was unblended with the peculiarities of Brahmenism : but, what shews the very great antiquity of the former mode of
worship, they found it already established among the Celts whom they at
length drove to the utmost extremities of the west ; though established in
that mingled form, in which it was perhaps universally carried off by the
Brahmenical theologists.
The Gauls venerated with human sacrifices Teutates and Hesus and Ta
panis.' But the Celtic Teutates is clearly the same as the Gothic Teut or
Tuisto : and, in both these words, we recognize one of Buddha's well-known
' The striking difference between the Gothic and Celtic theologies has been observed and
pointed out by Bp. Percy and Mr. Pinkerton, who judiciously expose the gross error of CIuveriusand Pelloutier on that topic. See Pref. to Mallet's North. Ant. and Dissert, on the Goths.
.* These topics are discussed at large in book vi. c. 3. VI. and c. 4.
3 Lucan. Pharsal. lib. i. rer. 444445. Lactant. Instit. lib.i. c. 21.
Pag. Idol.
vol. ii.
2 Z
362
titles, Tat, Datta, or Twashta.
In a similar manner, Taranis is Thor : and
each of those names, compounded or uncompounded, is equally Tara-Nath,

another of the titles of Buddha. Hesus, both in name and in character,
seems to afford the connecting link between the two superstitions. This
appellation is another of Buddha's titles ; but he bears it, in consequence of
his being esteemed the same as Siva or Iswara. He is called Esa, MaHesa, and Har-Esa, which is properly a name of Siva, the sanguinary
cruelty of whose imagined character of the destroying power accurately cor
responds with that of Hesus.'
The identity of Tuisto and Teutates is
further proved from the circumstance of their being each called by the Latin
writers Mercury. Tacitus says, that the Germans, who were Goths and
votaries of Woden or Tuisto, worshipped Mercury as their principal deity :
and Cesar, Minucius Felix, and Livy, agree in saying the same of the Gauls,
who adored Teutates.1 Nor is this assertion thrown out at random, or
hazarded merely on account of some slight and partial resemblance between
Teutates and Mercury : this divinity, as we shall presently see, much as his
dignity has been lowered in classical mythology, was the same character as
the oriental Buddha. At present I shall only notice the arbitrary coinci
dence of the fourth day of the week bearing the name of Buddha among
the Hindoos, of Woden among the Goths, and of Mercury among the
Romans.
2. If the Hindoo religion be taken in a 'large sense, as including the two
systems of Brahmenism and Buddhism, Mr. Burrow will be right in his
assertion, that there are signs of it in every northern country and in almost
every national mode of worship: but, that the centre whence it overspread
the whole earth was the high land of Bokhara or the region of mount Meru,
does not appear to me equally certain. Pure Buddhism was indeed, I be
lieve, for the most part carried in various directions from that tract of
country : but we must look for the primeval origin of both systems to the
land of Shinar and to the first Scuthic empire under Nimrod. From this
1 Asiat. Res. vol. i. p. 272, 285. vol. viii. p. 355, 359.

* Tacit, de mor.Germ. c. 9. Caesar, dc bell. Gall. lib. vi. c. 17. Minuc. Fcl. Octav. p.
295. Liv. Hist. lib. xxvi. c. 44.
363
centre Buddhism and Brahmenism must have been alike carried into the
west long before the march of the Goths or more modern Scuths from their
native seats in Cashgar. Yet Mr. Burrow may not be far mistaken in
asserting, as an evident and palpable truth, that Stonehenge is a temple
of Buddha.1 In a modified sense, this may safely be admitted. The Celts,
no less than the Goths, were worshippers of Buddha : but then they wor
shipped him much in the same manner as the Hindoos and Egyptians,
namely by blending his peculiar superstition with that of Brahmenism.
Buddha, as we have seen, notwithstanding the violent enmity of the Brahmens to the Buddhists, is yet acknowledged to be an incarnation of Vishnou :
and, as such, he is confessedly identified with the triple god Brahma-VishnouSiva ; and is venerated, as the personage described by the mystic monosyl
lable Om. In this manner, I apprehend, the chief deity of the old Druids
may be admitted to be Buddha, and Stonehenge to be a Buddhic temple;
but it is in this manner only : for the Celtic theology, though of a mixed
nature, partook much more largely of Brahmenism than of Buddhism ; the
very circumstance, which produced the striking difference between it and
that of the Gothic tribes.
That such a mixture had taken place in the superstition of Gaul and Bri
tain as well as in the idolatry of Hindostan, sterns to me to be .abundantly
evident.
In addition to the titles Hesus, Teutaies, and Taranis ; the names
both of Buddha and of Arhan, and of Man or Mahi-Man, were well

known to the ancient Celts.
Budd, Btiddugre, Bud-Ner, and Buddwas, were varied appellations of
the principal Celtic god Hu, who was adored in the stupendous circle of
Stonehenge: consequently, Stonehenge may in this manner be justly said to
have been a temple of Buddha and a representation of the Sakya-valya or
mundane ring of Saca.1 This divinity, considered as Buddha or Teut, is
rightly pronounced by Cesar, Minucius Felix, and Livy, to be Mercury or
Hermes : but, in his Brahmenical character, he is with equal propriety de
clared by Diodorus to be Apollo, and by Dionysius to be Liber or Bacchus.
* Asiat. Res. vol. ii. p. 487, 488.
* Davies'* Mythol. of Brit. Druid, p. 1 16, 118, 364, 468, 557, 584.
36"4
The word Arhan is written by Mr. Da vies Arawn, and is not improbably
supposed by him to denote the arkite god.* The legend of this hero at least
exactly accords with such a conjecture : for Arawn is the king of the
mighty deep, and his whole story relates immediately to the deluge.
Like
Hu and Buddha, he is the same character as Noah : and consequently he is

the same in person, and (I believe) also in name, as the oriental Arhan.
This deity was sometimes called Manon, Menu, or Menwyd.*
Here we
have the Man, or (when expressed compoundedly) the Mahi-Man or great

Man, of the oriental Buddhists.
The same system of theology prevailed also among the Celts of Ireland,
and it was accompanied by the use of the same sacred titles.
General Vallancey assures us, that the ancient Irish were votaries of
Buddha: and he adduces many proofs of this opinion, which seems to me
to be a just one. Bad, Bod, or Bud, was thought to preside over marriage,
and likewise to be the maritime deity of the winds. He was venerated in
conjunction with Mananan the god of the waters, and Re the Moon : and
this triad was believed to have the disposal of good and bad weather.1 It
is in fact nothing more than a variation of the Buddhic triad.
Bud, consi
dered as the great father, was esteemed the masculine president of genera
tion, exactly on the same principle that that character was ascribed to BaalPeor, Osiris, and Siva ; and, in his diluvian capacity of the arkite navigator,
he was obviously made a maritime deity. He and Man-Anan, whose name
(we are told) signifies the aquatic Man, are but one person ; precisely as
the oriental Buddha and Mahi-Man are one : and this man is the diluvian
Manes, Menes, Menu, or Mannus, whose name and history have been car
ried to every quarter of the globe. The Moon, which is the third person in
this Irish triad, is largely introduced into the fabulous genealogy of Buddha.
If a female divinity, the arkite crescent is doubtless intended by it ; if a
male, Buddha himself is the god Soma or Lunus. Mananan was esteemed
the son of the sea : nor is it without reason, that such a descent was
' Davies's Mythol. p. 198, 417, 420.
* Ibid. p. 584, 228, 428, 176, 568.
3 Orient. Collect. voL ii. numb. i. p. 18, 19. Collect, de reb. Hibcrn. vol. iii. numb. x.
pref. p4. vol. iv. numb. xiv. p. 41, 509-
THE cniltitN Of PAGAN IDOLATRY.
365
ascribed to him ; for he is the same as that Mahi-Man or Buddha or Menu,

who was preserved in an ark at the time of the general deluge.
The name Tat or Talk or Tail was as well known to the ancient Irish as
Bud and Man. Tat is the same as the Hindoo Tat or Datta and the
Egyptian Thoth or Taut.
This point , is established, not merely by the
identity of title, but by a curious coincidence of an arbitrary nature.

The first month of the Egyptians, which commenced on the calends of
August, was called Thoth in honour of the deity of that name : and the first
day of August w as, for a similar reason, called by the old Irish la Tat.
This god was supposed by them to preside over the harvest.1 He was the
same as the agricultural Jupiter, Bacchus, Osiris, and Deo-Naush; or as
the prototype of all those kindred divinities, Noah the husbandman.
Another of the titles of Buddha is Soman or Somono : and this likewise
was familiar to the pagan inhabitants of Ireland.
Menu-Satyavrata,
Buddha, considered as
is the god of obsequies, agreeably to the universal
notion of the Gentiles, that the arkite god had descended into Hades and
was the principal infernal deity. Such accordingly is the character of the
Irish Saman, Samhan, or Shamhna. He was esteemed the lord of death,
and the judge of departed spirits. His festival occurred in the month of
November, when sacrifices of black sheep were offered to him for the souls
of the deceased.*
But this infernal divinity was likewise a sea-god ; just as
the infernal Menu or Buddha flourished at the time of the deluge, and was
preserved in a large ark. Traces of his worship, such is the strong hold
that primeval superstition lays on the human mind, still remain both in Ire
land and in the western isles of Scotland. At the time of his festival, which
coincides with the Popish feast of All-Souls, the peasants wade into the sea
for the purpose of searching for the head of this god, whose name they
have corrupted from Shamna into Shony.1 One of thein bears a cup of
ale, which he throws into the water, after invocating the demon to send
1 Collect, de reb. Hibern. vol. iii. numb. xii. p. 469, *70. vol. iv. numb. xiii. p. 43.
Orient. Collect, vol. ii. numb. i. p. 18, 19* To this Cimmerian or Celtic Pluto, Homer accurately describes Ulysses, as sacrificing a.
black ram. Odyss. lib. xi. * The reason, why the feast of All-Souls was appointed to supersede the festival of the
h.fernal Saman, is sufficiently obvious.
CHA' y
366
abundance of sea-ware to enrich their ground during the ensuing year. This
ceremony, as was the case with the ancient Mysteries, is performed in the
night-time. They then proceed to the church : and, having extinguished
a burning candle which had been placed upon the communion-table, they
spend the rest' of the night in drinking, dancing, and singing.1
S. It often happens, that local names survive the shock both of political
and theological revolutions, and thus continue to attest to the remotest ages
the religion of former days. There is reason to believe, that something of
this nature has occurred in several instances within the limits of the present
British dominions.
Plutarch speaks of a certain traveller named Demetrius, whose curiosity
had led him to visit the most distant extremities of Scotland. He described
that part of the country as being surrounded by a great number of scattered
and desert islets ; and he added, that some of these were expressly called the
islands of the demons and heroes venerated by the natives.* His account I
believe to have been perfectly accurate : and it enables us to produce a very
singular proof of the ancient prevalence of Buddhism among the Celts. Of
these sacred isles, which in the time of Demetrius were designated by the
titles of the British demon-gods, four still bear the denominations of Bute,
Arran, Ila, and Skye. Now, when the direct attestation of the traveller
is considered, on the one hand ; and the existence among the Celts of the
titles Budwas, Budd, Arawn, Teutates, and Taranis, on the other hand :
we can scarcely doubt, that those four islands were so called in honour of
Buddha, Arhan, Ila the arkite consort of Buddha, and Saca or Sakya. In
a similar manner, it is the ancient tradition of the Irish and the Manx, that
Man-Anan or the aquatic Man, who is described as being the son of the
ocean and whom I have identified with the Hindoo Mahi-Man or Menu,
settled in the isle of Man, and thence conferred his name upon it.' Each
of these was in fact a holy island ; or, in the language of the bards, a
sanctuary surrounded by the sea : each represented the mundane Ark :
1 Collect, de reb. Hibern. vol. iii. numb. xii. p. 449, 460.
* O Sb Aijfwjrfioy e<pi\ Tivv
fyjv Bisrrccyiccv vyjiriuv tivat -goXKa.; spifJ-ovs <rg^nS,(, (an
(via; iou^wuiv xat yg<utov ovopx&<r9at. Plut. de defect, orac.
3 Collect, de reb. Hibern. vol. iv. numb, xiv. p. 509.
367
each was considered as, the residence of the deified patriarchs : and each
bore the titles, by which the great father or his mystic consort were distin
guished. 1
XII. We have just seen, that in the Celtic festival of Samana, which is
still superstitiously observed in the western isles of Scotland, the head of the
1 Such sacred isles, devoted to the celebration of the funereal Mysteries, have given rise to
many wild tales yet extant among the Welsh and the Irish.
Gavran, Cadwallon, and Gwenddolau, were the heads, we are told, of the three faithful
tribes of Britain. The family of Gavran obtained that title by accompanying him to sea to
discover some islands, which, by a traditionary memorial, were known by the name of The
Green Islands of the ocean. This expedition was not heard of afterwards; and the situation
of the islands became lost to the Britons. Camb. Biog. The legend is closely allied to the
voyage of Merlin and his bards in the boat of glass, and to the abreption of Arthur by the
Lady Morgana to the delights of an insular fairy-land. It originated from the circumstance
of some aspirants being cast away, while undergoing the process of the navicular initiation
into the Mysteries. See below book v. c. 6. VIII. 4. (4.)
These Green Islands are thought to be the abode of the Fair Family ; which consists of the
souls of those, virtuous Druids, who cannot enter the Christian heaven and therefore enjoy this
heaven of their own. In their better moods they often come over the ocean, and carry the
Welsh in their boats. He, who visits their holy islands, imagines on his return that he has
been absent only a few hours ; when, in reality, whole centuries have passed away. We have
here a variation of the wonderful story told by Tzetzes respecting an instantaneous voyage of
the dead from the coast of Gaul to that of Britain. See above book ii. c. 3. I.
If you take a turf from St. David's church-yard, and stand upon it on the seashore ; you
may behold the Green Islands. An adventurer, we are assured, once actually reached them .
by the happy contrivance of placing the turf in his boat and using it as a footstool. This tale
relates to the artificial floating islands covered with green turf, which make so prominent a
figure in the ritual of the pagans. See below book v. c. 7- I. 3.
Similar notions prevail among the Irish. They have a tradition, that great part of the north
of Ireland was swallowed up by an inundation of the sea, but that the submerged regions
often arise out of the waves and become visible to those who,unite together the two indispen
sable qualifications of a strong sight and a strong faith. These regions are sometimes
esteemed an inchanted Paradisiacal island, and at other times are described as a wonderful
city floating upon the waves. The connection of the legend with the old Druidical supersti
tion is sufficiently apparent from the popular belief, that the magical key of this navicular city,
which once contained within its compass all the riches of the world, lies buried beneath some
one of the rock temples. I need scarcely observe, that the prototype of the city or island was
the Ark. See Southey's Madoc. vol. ii. p. 146" 149.
368
i:ook iv.
lost god was sought for in the sea.
The notion, that the head of the great
diluvian father was peculiarly set afloat, has extended itself very widely :
and, as it is of a nature altogether arbitrary, it thence tends to prove the
point for which I specially argue; namely the common origination of the
various systems of pagan mythology.
1. Thus in Egypt a papyrine vessel was yearly made to represent the
head of Osiris; which, being cast into the waves, was thought to be carried
in the course of seven days to the shores of Phenicia. When it reached its
destination, rejoicings were made over the lost divinity as being found again ;
just as the votaries of Samana concluded their search for his head with riotous
mirth and debauchery.1
2. Thus also we meet with a similar legend respecting a head among, the
Romans ; which together with the name of the deity to whom it belonged,
they most probably borrowed from that ancient and remarkable people the
Tuscans. The god himself was called Summanus or (omitting the Latin
termination) Summan : and both his name and his character prove him to be
no other than the oriental Suman or Buddha, the Samana or Shamhnaof the
Irish Celts. The Romans, who, like the Greeks, were fond of resolving
foreign words into their own language, fancied, that Summanus was so called
from his being Summits Manium or the Prince of the Manes.1 Such no doubt
was his character ; for he was certainly the diluvian god of obsequies : but,
since we fmd the principal infernal deity called by the same appellation both
among the Hindoos, the Cingalese, the Burmas, and the Celts, the etymology
of that appellation cannot be reasonably sought for in the Latin tongue.
Ovid says, that the worship of Summan was first introduced among the
Romans, when they were threatened by the arms of Pyrrhus ; which seems
to confirm the opinion, that it was borrowed from their neighbours the Tus
cans : yet he expresses himself as being ignorant of the character of the god. '
An inscription however, preserved by Gruter, identifies him with Pluto : and
a curious fable, detailed by Cicero, sufficiently proves his close connection
with the Celtic Samana and the Egyptian Osiris.
He says, that, when the
* Luc. de dea Syra. Procop. in Esaiam. c. xviii. apud Selden. See Plate I. Fig. It.
1 Plin. Nat. Hist. lib. ii. c. 52. lib. xxix. c. 4.
; .^
3 Ovid. Fast. lib. vi. vcr. 731, 732.
THE ORIOIV OF PAOAN IDOLATRY.
369
eartlien image of Summan was cast down from heaven, and when his head
v-
'could no where be found, the soothsayers declared it to have fallen into the
Tiber ; and, accordingly, it was discovered in the precise place which they
pointed out.1
XIII. Pursuing to the extreme limits of the west our inquiries after the
worship of Buddha, we have been led to pass from the Goths and Celts to
the Romans, and to conclude that the Summan of the latter is no other than
the Suman, Saman, or Somona, of the orientals. But I am inclined to
think, that Summan is by no means the only classical deity, in whose worship
we may recognize the old Taautic superstition.
One of the names of Buddha is Jain or Jain-Esa : and it has been amply
shewn by Sir William Jones, that the mythology of Italy was substantially
the same as that of Hindostan. Such being the case, it seems highly pro
bable, that the oriental Jain ought to be identified with the western Janus ;
whose worship, like that of Suman, the Romans apparently borrowed from
the Etruscans or ancient Latins.
To this opinion I am equally led by simi
larity of appellation, and by unity of character. Janus, when the Latin

termination is omitted, is the same word as Jain : and both Jain and Janus
are alike the transmigrating great father. But Janus is not only the great
father, according to that universal manner, in which all the chief gods of
Paganism thus ultimately resolve themselves : like Buddha, he stands insu
lated as it were from the reigning superstition ; and his worship appears rather
to have been superadded to it, than to have formed an originally constituent
part of it. Of this circumstance Ovid was fully conscious : whence he asks
not unnaturally, in what light he ought to consider the god Janus ; since the
theology of the Greeks, which was radically that of the Romans, acknow
ledged no such divinity.* Yet, though like Jain or Buddha he stands de
tached from the great family of classical gods ; his history sufficiently proves,
that, like that oriental deity, he is the same character as Noah.
1. He was supposed, at a very remote period, to have passed over into
Plutoni Summano, aliisque diit Stygiit. G rut. Inscrip. fol. 1015. Cicer. de <Kv. lib. i.
e. 10.
* Ovid. Fast. lib. i. yer. 89, 90.
Pag. Idol.
%
vol. ii.
3 A
m -t
370
Italy ; of which country, in conjunction with the aboriginal Cameses, he

obtained the sovereignty. Here he received Saturn ; who, after wandering
over the whole world, debarked at length from his ship and brought his
tedious voyage to a successful termination on the coast of Tuscany. Some
say, that Janus received from this god instructions in the art of agriculture,
and that through gratitude he admitted him into a copartnership of empire :
but, however that may be, precisely the same actions are attributed to him,
as the Greeks ascribed to Dionusus, and the Egyptians to Osiris. He was
the first institutor of civil polity.
He flourished at so distant a period, that
it was a matter of doubt, whether he were a demon or a king. He brought

mankind from a rude and barbarous mode of life to submit to the laws of
order and civilization. He was their instructor in agriculture. He was the
first, that built temples to the gods, and ordained the sacred rites of religion.
He reigned in those early days, when the deities freely mixed with mortals,
and when their presence on the earth was a thing common and familiar ; when
the frequency of crimes had not yet chased justice from the world; when a
decent sense of shame supplied the place of legal restraint ; and when war
and rapine were yet unknown.1
The rest of his history exactly corresponds with this primeval character.
In the ancient songs of the Salii he was celebrated,, not as some obscure
local divinity, but as the god of gods.* He was called Consivius, as being
the universal parent of mankind.' To him was attributed the beginning and
the end of all things.4 He was invoked as the general father, as the parent
of the Universe, as the beginning of the several hero-gods.s The charge of
the whole world was assigned to him : and, as Osiris is sometimes identified
with Typhon or the deluge, and as the ocean is said to be one of the forms
of Siva ; so we are told by Ovid, that the ancient mythologists designated
Janus by the name of Chaos* Under this title they jointly referred him to
the era of the creation and the deluge : for, as every part of his character
1 Plut. in Tit. Num. Plut. Quaest. Rora. p. 269. Macrob. Saturn, lib. i. c. 7. p. 151.
Ovid. Fast. lib. i. v. 233, 234, 247253. Macrob. Saturn, lib. i. c. 9- P- 1571 Macrob. Saturn, lib. i. c. 9. p. 1 59.
1 Ibid.
* Albric. Pbilos. de deor. imag. c. xiv. p. 317. 5 Versic. Septim. Seren. Falisc.
Ovid. Fast. libi. ver. 103, 117120.
371
abundantly shews, he was the primeval transmigrating great father; that is

to say, Noah viewed as a reappearance of Adam.
2. In the mythologic composition, however, of the great father, Noah
seems to have predominated. Hence we generally find him in some manner
connected with a story of a ship and a voyage.
The coins of Janus exhibited on one side the double face of the god, and
on the reverse either a ship or the stern or prow of a ship. Macrobius and
Ovid say, that this device was adopted to commemorate the arrival of the
ship of Saturn : but Plutarch is not satisfied with the solution ; and still
inquires, why such a symbol should adorn the medals of Janus.1 In fact, if
Saturn be esteemed a distinct character from Janus, the device of the ship
ought rather to have been stamped on the coins of the former than on those
of the latter; and this not improbably produced the question, which is asked
by Plutarch : but Saturn, and Janus, and Cameses, were all equally and
properly that first navigator, who was the king and the instructer of an infant
world. The true reason, in short, why the coins of Janus exhibited the
impression of a ship, may best be collected from what Atheneus tells us
respecting him. He says, that he was the first inventor of barks and ships ; a
circumstance, which at once accounts for the reverse of his medals, and
points out with sufficient clearness his real character.* Accordingly, in his
aboriginal chapel he had an ancient ark, as we learn from Septimius Serenus ;
-much in the same manner, I apprehend, as Dionusus, Osiris, Adonis,
Siva, Hu, or Mexitli.1 Yet, although Saturn, Janus, and Cameses, be
severally Noah ; still, when associated together as partners in empire, they
* Macrob. Saturn, lib. i. c.7- p. 151, 152. Ovid. Fast. lib. i. ver. 229242. Plut.
Queest. Rom. p. 274. These medals of Janus seem to have been very common : for Macro
bius mentions a play among children exactly similar to one, which prevails in this country
even to the present day. They threw the coin up into the air; and, before it fell to the
ground, crid out after the manner of a wager, Heads or shipt.
1 Athen. Deipnos. lib. xv. p. 692.
1 Jane Pater,
O cate rerum sator, O principium deorum,
Tibi vetus area caluit in aborigineo sacello.
Versic. Septim. Seren. Falisc.
caAtf' v-
372
seem further to shadow out that sacred triad, so famous both in the Brahmenical and Buddhic systems of theology.
Agreeably to his diluvian character, Janus was called Junoniua from the
goddess Juno : whose name Mr. Bryant resolves into Jumh, which signifies a
dove ; and who is decidedly pronounced by Mr. Wilford to be the same as
the Hindoo female principle Yoni or Yum, which at the time of the flood
successively assumed the forms of the ship Argha and the dove Capoteswari.1
Hence he has not only his ship or ark, but he is likewise attended by a dove:
for, on the reverse of some of his coins, that bird appears, either holding a
branch in its bill, or surrounded with a chaplet of olive leaves. 2
He was further thought to be the governor of the mystic Hades ; and was
believed to have the power of opening and shutting the door, by which it
.was approached.5 This part of his character relates, I have no doubt, to
the door in the side of the Ark, through which Noah and his family issued from
the reputed regions of death and darkness to those of light and life. Hence
the altars of Janus were placed before the doors of his temples, to shew that he
presided, as Macrobius observes, over entrance and exit: hence also he was
called Patulcius and Clusius, or the god of opening and shutting : and
hence, considered as the solar Apollo, he bore the title of Thyreus or the
divinity qf the door.*
Similar to this was a name of the great mother of the hero-gods. She
was called Prothyrea or the goddess before the door : and, from the circum
stance of the quitting of the Ark being considered as the birth of the Noetic
divinities, she was esteemed the female president of generation. Prothyrea
was the same as Diana, or Venus, or Juno, or Lucina ; each of whom was
similarly accounted the goddess of parturition.5
She was immediately and
naturally connected with Janus, the god of the door : and she then assumed
from him the appellation of Jana. I apprehend, that Jam and Diana are
really the same name : for Diana appears to be nothing more than a com1 Macrob. Saturn, lib. i. c. 9. p. 159.
1 See a plate representing such coins from Gorlasus, Spanheim, and Paruta, in Bryants
Anal. vol. ii. p. 2fi0.
1 iMacrob. Saturn, lib. i. c. 9- P- 158. Arnob. adv. gent. lib. iii.
4 Macrob. Saturn, lib. i. c. 9- P- 158, 1595 Orph. Hymn. i.
THE ORIGIN Of PAGAN IDOLATRY.
373
pound word, denoting the divine Jana. m At any rate, we are informed by
Nigidius, that Jana is the same person as Diana, just as Janus is the same
character as Apollo : that is to say, they are astronomically the Sun and the
Moon, though literally Noah and the Ark.1 Janus and Jana in short are
the great father and the great mother, celebrated by the ancient mythologists
under so many different names.
XIV. Janus appears to have been sometimes called Vadimon or Vandimon, particularly by the inhabitants of Tuscany : for we are told, that Va
dimon is the same as Janus- Vertumnus.*
The Etruscan fragment, said to have been found by Inghiram, in which
Vadimon is at once declared to be Janus and to be the same person as he
whom the Syrians call Noa, can scarcely perhaps be cited as genuine: nor
do I know what authority Annius of Viterbo had for putting into the mouth
of the spurious Myrsilus an assertion, that the ancient Tuscans alone wor
shipped Janus and Vesta, whom in their peculiar dialect they called JanibVadimon and Labith-Horchia} The forgeries of that writer certainly con
tain much curious matter, much also that undesignedly has been established
83 truth by the inquiries of more recent authors. This at least is certain,
that one of the Tuscan lakes, now called Lago di Bassanello, formerly
bore the name of Vadimon: and, in bearing such an appellation, it suffi
ciently shews both the character of the deity and the nature of the worship
which was paid to him. Among the ancient mythologists a lake was a sym
bol of the deluge; and an island, of the Ark. Sometimes the island was
believed to float : and it is probable, that in many instances it really did float ;
for they seem very frequently to have constructed an artificial one, framed of
timber-work and covered with turf. Whether such was absolutely the case
with the islands in the lake of Vadimon, I shall not pretend to determine :
but, according to the account which Pliny gives of it, several islets, covered
with reeds and rushes, and in form resembling ships, floated upon its bosom;
while the lake itself was esteemed sacred, doubtless to the god whose
name it bore.4
V
1 Macrob. Saturn, lib. i. c. 9. p. 158.
1 Vadimon, Janus-Vertumnus. See a catalogue of Etruscan words in Collect, de reb.
llibern. vol. iii. numb. XII. p. 633.
3 Myrsil. de bell. Pelasg. c. vi.
4 Plin. Epist. lib. viii. epist. 20.
CHAP. y.
374
As I have conjectured that Janus is the same divinity as Jain or Buddha ;

so I am in some measure disposed to think, that the conjecture is strength
ened by the name Vadimon. It is certainly an old Tuscan appellation ; but
the question is, whence the Etrurians themselves borrowed it. I suspect it
to be an oriental title imported by the wandering Pelasgi, who seem to have
been a tribe of the Indo-Scythic Palli and who early settled in Italy: for it is
apparently no other than the name Bad or Buddha in composition with
Mon or Man. Among the many variations of that name we find Bod, Bad,
Wod and Wad. Now the syllable Vad, in Vadimon, is the same syllable as
Bad or Wad ; whether they be really connected together in point of origin
or not : and the syllable Mon or Man is a well-known title of Buddha, who
is sometimes called Mahi-Man or the great Man. In addition therefore
to identity of character, Vadimon affords a double coincidence of name,
because it compounds together two of the titles of Buddha. I would not
however lay any undue stress upon this derivation. Though I think it not an
improbable one, I wish to build my system upon facts rather than upon
words.
XV. There is another ancient Latin or Etruscan deity of a very singular
character, with whom Janus is closely connected, and whom I am inclined
to esteem the same as that god and therefore the same as Buddha.
We are told, that the beginning and the end of all things were ascribed
to Janus. This however was not invariably the case : for sometimes Janus
was reckoned to preside over the beginning, and Terminus over the end.1
Terminus was esteemed the god of justice, and the preserver of peace be
tween man and man ; in which capacity he was aptly made to preside over
boundaries and landmarks. His original sacrifices were bloodless, Numa
deeming it incongruous to the character of such a deity to offer him any thing
that had life.* In most of these particulars he so closely resembles Buddha,
that I am led at once to believe them the same, and to conjecture that the
very appellation of Terminus is borrowed from a title of the oriental deity.
The Buddhists think it impious to venerate their god with sanguinary oblations ;
an idea, which naturally arose from the doctrine of the Metempsychosis :
* August, de civ. Dei. lib. iii. c. 7-
* Plut. in vit. Num.
375
and, in his character of the god of justice, his followers call him DhermaRajah ; a name, which he bore, as that just Menu who was preserved in
an ark at the time of the deluge. From this coincidence of attributes, joined
with the now established position that the theology of Greece and Italy is the
theology of India, it is not unreasonable to guess, that Terminus is the com
pound Dherm-Menu written after the manner of the Latins.
But I have not yet mentioned all the circumstantial coincidences between
the character of Terminus and that of Buddha.
Somono-Codom or Buddha is frequently represented by nothing except
a large black stone : and this mode of exhibiting both the great father and
the great mother has spread itself over an amazing extent of country.1 Such
was the primeval form of Terminus : and to this form, as consecrated by
Numa in the Capitol, Virgil, if the criticism of Lactantius be just, alludes,
when he speaks of the immoveable stone of that famous citadel.* The
epithet, which the poet applies to the stone, renders it probable that the
criticism is just. When Tarquin wished to build a temple to Jupiter within
the precincts of the Capitol, his project was impeded by the numerous cha
pels dedicated to different gods. They were severally consulted, whether
they would give place to Jupiter: but, when all the others yielded a ready
assent, Terminus remained immoveable, and kept possession of his temple
with the sovereign of the deities himself.'
It is a curious circumstance, that Terminus was thought to be the stone,
which Saturn swallowed instead of Jupiter.4 This stone was called Betylus :
and its name evidently connects the worship of Terminus with the old
Betulian rock-worship, which in fact was the worship of Buddha.5
In the Phenician mythology, Betylus was the brother of Cronus, Dagon,
and Atlas : and their parent Uranus is said to have contrived stones called
Betulia, which possessed the power of motion as if they were instinct with
life.6
These were most probably sacred rocking stones, which were held in
* Maurice's Ind. Ant. vol. iii. p. 31. Anc. Hist, of Ind. vol. ii. p. 481.
, * Ovid. Fast. lib. ii. ver. 641. Tibull. Eleg. lib. i. eleg. 1. ver. 12. Lactant. Instit. lib. i.
c. 20. Virg. Êncid. lib. ix. ver. 448.
1 Lactant. Jnstit. lib. i. c. 20. Ovid. Fast. lib. ii. ver. 666670.
* Lactant. Instit. lib. i. c. 20.
5 Hesych. Lex.
* Euseb. Prsep. Evan. lib. i. c. 10.
CHA?. v.
376
book iv.
THE OKIGIX OF PAGAN IDOLATRY.
high veneration in the Druidical superstition.
Terminus then is clearly the
same person as Betylus ; not only because a stone was the form under wliich
each of them was worshipped, but because Terminus is expressly declared
to be the stone which Saturn swallowed in lieu of Jupiter and which itself
bore the appellation of Betylus.
That this Betylus however was the same as Buddha may be inferred, not
only from his form, but likewise from his name and his genealogy.
I once thought with Bochart, that Betylus was the scriptural compound
Beth- El or the house of God: but I have now my doubts as to the propriety
of such a derivation. Betylus was indeed represented by a stone pillar:
but yet, like Terminus, he is spoken of as a god, not as a place of worship.
The Greeks expressed the word Baitulos : and, however the Phenicians
might write it, it certainly appears to be a compounded title. Now we
have already seen, that, among the various modes in whicli the name
Buddha is pronounced, one is Bat, Bait, or Baiuth. We have also seen
that his consort is Ila : whence, even if we knew not that Ila is a masculine as
well as a feminine title, we might infer, according to the analogy of ancient
Paganism, that one of his appellations must be
or Ilus. Such circum
stances render the conjecture probable, that Baitulos or Betylus is in reality
the name Bait or Buddha with the title // suffixed to it. This last title was
well known to the Indo-Scythic Phenicians : and they bestowed it on the
person, whom the Greek translator of Sanchoniatho denominates Cronus.1
The state of the question in short, with respect to the etymology of Betylus,
is this. We know, that Buddha was worshipped under the symbol of a
large stone : and we likewise know, that his name is frequently pronounced
Bat or Bait, and that one of his titles is // or Ila. Under such circum
stances, we are told, that the stone, which represented Terminus or Buddha,
was called Baitylus: for this is the express assertion of Laclantius. Now,
since Baitylus was the appellation of the stone which symbolized Budd-Ila,
it is surely more reasonable to suppose that it borrowed its name from the
god whom it confessedly represented, than to imagine that it ought to be
derived from the action of a Hebrew patriarch who was a worshipper not of
1 Euteb. Praep. Evan. lib. i. c. 10.

Buddha but of Jehovah.
377
At any rate, the stone Baitylus was certainly the
symbol of the god Bait-Ila.1

Though Betylus is described as being the brother of Dagon, Cronus, and
Atlas ; they are all one person, all equally the transmigrating great father
with whom every new world commences. This person the classical writers
would indifferently call Cronus and Jupiter. Hence we find, that the fishgod Dagon, who, in allusion to another part of the history of Noah, was
esteemed the patron of agriculture, is said by the Greek translator of Sanchoniatho to be the same as Jupiter-Arotrius : and hence we likewise find,
that Terminus or Betylus, though his office was latterly confined to the
guardianship of boundaries, was in reality no. other than Jupiter himself.
One of the names of this deity was Terminalis ; and he was thought, like
Terminus, to preside over landmarks.
Accordingly, while we are told by
Lactantius, Ovid, and Plutarch, that Terminus was the god to whom Numa
dedicated landmarks : we are informed by Dionysius of Halicarnassus, that
that god was Jupiter-Tenninalis ; and by Cicero,, that one of the most
solemn oaths was by Jupiter the stone.* When Jupiter was venerated
under this form, he was called Cappotas : a title, which again brings us
back to Buddha ; for the name of that god is frequently pronounced
Pout or Pot or Poti, and the compound Cappotas will denote the illustrious
Pout.'
XVI. With respect to Dagon, his form was so precisely that of the Chal
dean Oannes and of the Indian Vishnou in the fish Avatar, exhibiting, to
use the language of the Buddhists, the sovereign prince Buddha issuing out
of the belly of the hieroglyphical fish, that we cannot for a moment doubt
his identity with each of those deities. His worship seems to have been
brought into Palestine by the Indo-Scythic Phenicians, when they migrated
westward from Babylonia and the confines of Hindostan ; that large tract
of country, designated by the appellations of the oriental Ethiopia and
Cusha-dwip withitu
' Lactant. Instit. lib. i. c. 20. p. 1 II, 112. Bochart. Canaan, lib. ii. c. 2. p. 707.
1 Dion. Halic. Ant. Rom. lib. ii. Epist. ad famil. Ep. ad Trcbat.
1 Paus. Lacon. p. 204. Asiat. Res. vol. vi. p. 260.
Pag. Idol.
vol. ii.
3B
HA*. v-
378
BOOK ,T.
THE OfilGIX OF PAGAN IDOLATRY.
1 . The Oannes of the Chaldeans is feigned to have emerged from the

Erythrean sea in the mingled form of a man and a fish, and to have heen
the instructor of a new race in every useful art. We are told, that four of
these mermen successively appeared, or rather, I apprehend, that the same
merman exhibited himself at four different times ; and that, under one of
his manifestations, he bore the name of Dacon.1 In this legend we may
evidently trace the doctrine of a transmigrating great father, appearing at the
commencement of each mundane system after he had floated on the surface
of the intervening deluge : and it is almost superfluous to observe, that
Oannes-Dacon is palpably the Philistean and Phenician Dagon. Each
Oannes was likewise called Annedot.' It is not unlikely, as Dacon is the
same title as Dagon, that Oannes is the same as Jain-Esa, and Annedot as
Jain-Dot or Jain-Daita. All these are appellations of Buddha : so that
both the names and the character of the Babylonian or Philistean god clearly
identify him with that ancient Indo-Scythic divinity.*
2. Equally well known is the title Dagon in the regions which lie to
the east of Babel. The word itself signifies the Jish On or Om : the first
syllable of it being the Chaldean Dag ; and the second, the mystic name
of the triplicated great father venerated in the Sun.
Some of the temples of Buddha, which are constructed in the figure of a
dome or egg surmounted by a pyramid, are still called Daghope and Dogon.1
And this mode of designating them is perfectly agreeable to the principles of
old mythology. The Ark was symbolized by a fish, and was considered in
the light of a temple : whence, Paganism being for the most part founded on
a commemoration of the deluge, the temples of the diluvian gods were ge
nerally copies of the mundane Ark or ship of Noah.
Dogon however is not only the name of the temple, but likewise of the
god Buddha himself, agreeably to his character of the sovereign prince in
the belly of the fish. Hamelton speaks of two temples in Pegu, one of the
principal seats of the Buddhic superstition, which so much resembled each
1 The Greek translator, by prefixing the article, has changed Dacon into Odacon : but the
oriental name of the god was clearly Dacon or Dagon.
* Syncell. Chronog. p. 29- Euseb. Chron. p. 5.
3 Asiat. Res. vol. vi. p. 451. Purch. Pilgr. b, v. e. 4. p. 468.
See Plate III. Fig. 23.
THE ORIGIN OF PAGAN IDOLATKY.
379
other in structure that they seemed to he built by the same model.
The
former of them stands in a lofty situation, and is called Kiaki-Ack or the

temple of Kiaki : the latter is built in a low plain, and is called the temple of
Dagun. The doors and windows of the one are always open : and every
body has free permission to see the gigantic image of the deity within ; which
is sixty feet long, reclines in a sleeping posture, and is supposed to have
lain in that state of deep repose six millenaries. But of the other the
doors and windows are always shut, so that none can enter except the
priests. These refuse to describe the precise shape of Dagun ; and only
say, that his form is not human. They teach, that, when Kiaki awakes, the
world is annihilated ; but that out of its fragments Dagun will form a new
one.1 The import of this superstition can scarcely be mistaken. Kiaki and
Dagun represent the great father in his two characters of the destroyer and
the renovator of the world : and the mysterious opening and closing of the
doors of their respective temples seem to be founded on notions similar to
those, which form the basis of the worship of Janus. The sleep of Kiaki is
the famous allegorical sleep of the transmigrating patriarch : and the colos
sal mode of representing him, as well as his posture of repose, would leave
us no room to doubt of his being the same as Buddha, even if his name
Kiaki or Sakya and the country in which he is worshipped did not sufficiently
decide the point. His companion Dagun is a mere reduplication of himself :
for he is certainly the Dac or Dak-Po of the Thihetians ; and Dak-Po is equi
valent to Dag- Pout or Dag-Buddha. This Dak-Po is said to be the father of
Bhavani ; who floated on the deluge in the form of the ship Argha, and who was
the universal mother of the hero-gods : and there is a notion, that he presides
over a celestial mansion called Doca; by which we ought, I think, to understand
the arkite Moon.1 It may be observed, that in one of the temples of Ceylon
there is a colossal statue of Buddha eighteen cubits long, which appears in the
same sleeping posture as the statue of Kiaki described by Hamelton.' Doubt' Hamelton's Acc. of the East Ind. vol. ii. p. 57. See also Symes's Erabass. to Ava. vol.
ii.p. 110.
1 Collect, dc reb. Hib. vol. iv. numb. 14. p. l6i.
J Asiat. Res. vol. vi. p. 451. See Plate II. Fig. 2.
CHAP" v,
380
less a similar mythological opinion consigned the god to a deep slumber both
among the Burmas and the Singalese.
3. It is a curious circumstance, that the name and the superstition of
Dagon should alike have been found in one of the islands of the Pacific
Ocean. The natives of Easter Island adore two large stones ; one of which
is flat and broad, and the other erect and about ten feet in height. The top
of the latter is carved into the form of a man's head crowned with a garland :
and the two are called Dago and Taurico.1 This is the precise worship of
Buddha or Terminus : and the combined veneration of Dago and Taurico
is not dissimilar to the joint adoration of Kiaki and Dagun.
4. But the worship of Dagon not only prevailed in the east : it extended
also far into the west. The ancient Irish had a deity, whom they called
Dagh-dae or the god Dagh : and he is'evidently the same as the Phenician
Dagon, the Siamese Dagun, and the Thibetian Dak-Po or Dag-I3uddha.
They esteemed him the god of fertility : and, extending his influence to the
watery element, they supposed him to preside over the produce both of the
sea and of the land. They likewise reckoned him to have been skilled in the
arts and sciences, and to have taught their ancestors letters and the art of
poetry. He was their Dia-Teibith or god of the Ark : and, as such, he was
made the consort of their great mother and the general father of all their
deities.1 Such particulars sufficiently mark the prototype, to which we ought
to refer the character of Dagh-dae.
XVII. This divinity is said to have been the brother of Hercules-Ogmius;
who was also the reputed parent of literature, and who was no less highly
venerated among the Celts.' Identity however of attributes will prove the
two mythological brethren to be really one and the same person : and there
is ample evidence to demonstrate, that the ancient hero, whom the Greeks
venerated under the name of Heracles or Hercules,, but whose worship
spread over the face of the whole earth, was no other than the oriental
Buddha.
* Account of discov. in Pac. ocean. London, 1767.
* Collect, de reb. llib. vol. iii. numb. 12. p. 594. vol. iv. numb. 14. p. l6l, 502, 503.
1 Collect, de rcb. Hib. vol. iv. p. 503.
THE OUrciJT OF PAGAN IDOLATRY.
38 J
1. I have already had occasion to notice those legends, which connect

Hercules with the Paradisiacal garden of the Hesperides and with the ser
pent that was fabled to be the keeper of the golden apples. In such tales
we behold him sustaining the character of Adam, the Menu-Swayambhuva
of the Hindoos and the elder Buddha of the Samanean superstition : but,
like most of the hero-gods, he is far more celebrated as the second great
father or the scriptural Noah. It is in this capacity therefore, that I have
at present chiefly to consider him.
2. Under the name of Menu-Satyavrata or Dherma-rajah, Buddha
appears as the sovereign prince in the belly of the fish and as the navi
gator of the Ark at the time of the deluge. Here he at once identifies
himself with Dagon and Hercules.
A tradition prevailed, that the latter of these deities was swallowed up
by a large fish, and that he remained three days within it' This large fish
or Cetus was nothing more than a symbol of the Ark ; whence we are in
formed by Hesychius, that Cttenh denotes a ship large like a whale: and
the three days related to the three years of Noah's inclosure within the Ark,
calculated after the ancient manner so long preserved among the Jews. The
whole period of his confinement was a year and ten days : so that he entered
the Ark in one year, remained within it an entire second year, and quitted it in
the third year. Hence, by the old mode of computation, Hercules is said to
have been three mystic days or three literal years within the whale ; precisely in
the same manner, as Jonah is reckoned to have been three days in the belly
of the fish, and Christ to have lain three days in the tomb.
That the import of this fable is similar to that of Buddha's inclosure
within the fish, which is declared by his votaries to be Jiterally the Ark, may
be inferred from what we are also literally told respecting the maritime Her
cules. He is feigned to have sailed over the ocean in a golden cup, which
was given to him by Apollo : but this cup is rightly declared by Macrobius
to have been a ship ; and the same author tells us from Pherecydes, that
Jupiter presented Alcmene the mother of Hercules with another golden
1 Tzctz. in Lycopfa. vcr. 34.
THE ORIGIN OF PAGAN IPOLATliy.

book iv.
CUp which was shaped like a boat.1
The cup of Hercules is certainly the
Argha of the Indo-Scythic mythology, in which Siva floated on the surface

of the deluge, and which was transformed into a dove when the waters
subsided. In the sacred rites of Hindostan it is represented by a cup or
dish, which ought always to be shaped like a boat, though Arghas may
sometimes be seen of different forms, oval, circular, or even square.1 This
vessel is the Argo of the Greeks and Egyptians : and accordingly we find,
that, as the Hindoo sacred ship is typified by a navicular cup, and as Her
cules also sailed over the ocean in a navicular cup, so he is sometimes said to
have been at once the builder and the captain of the ship Argo.1 He sha
dowed out in fact the same common progenitor of mankind as Jason and
Osiris and Danaus, each of whom is likewise made the captain of the
Argo ; though on the whole he appears to be more nearly allied to Buddha,
than to the gods of the Brahmenical family. Agreeably to this part of his
character, it was usual to depict him in a boat. Thus in his temple at Erythrae he was represented on a wooden raft, and was supposed to have sailed
upon it from Tyre in Phenicia. Pausanias truly remarks, that the image of
the god resembled neither those of Egina nor those of Athens, but that it
had a near affinity to those of Egypt.4
Doubtless it was a representation
similar to that of Osiris or Ammon in the holy ship Baris or Argo.

3. Both in Egypt and in Phenicia the worship of Hercules was of very
remote antiquity. Herodotus tells us, that he was one of the oldest gods of
the former country, and that he was reckoned among the twelve who were
* Apollod.Bibl. lib. ii. c. 5. Athen. Deipnos. lib. xi. p. 4^0. Macrob. Saturn, lib. v. c. 21.
1 Ptol. Hcph. Nov. Hist. lib. ii. p. 310. Apollod. Bibl. lib. i. c. 9- '>,
* Paus. Achaic. p. 405. I think it however right to observe, that the unfortunate ambi
guity of the original Greek renders it somewhat uncertain, whether Hercules or Minerva was
staled on this raft. In the beginning of the passage, Pausanias seems to speak of the latter;
but, at the conclusion of it, he appears rather to mean the former. On the whole I am in
clined to assent to Mr. Bryant's opinion, that Hercules was the person seated on the raft:
which is rendered the more probable by the known veneration of the Tyrians for that deity,
and by the annexed talc of an imagined voyage from Phenicia. Bryant's Anal. vol. ii.
p. 223.
583
produced from the famous Ogdoad : but his history shews, that, as Noah,
he was really the head of the eight primeval divinities.1 Accordingly, he
was sometimes reputed to have been the parent of eight children ; and, at
other times, the father of three sons.1 In Tyre he had a magnificent temple,
which his priests asserted to be coeval with the city, and to which in the
days of Herodotus they ascribed the age of twenty three centuries. The
curious historian took a voyage on purpose to visit it ; and from every cir
cumstance was convinced, that Hercules was a most ancient deity.5 Among
the Phenicians he was esteemed the god of navigation : and they called him
Palemon and Melicarth*
The Greeks borrowed these names ; and,
working them up into a fable which sufficiently explains its own origin,
they represented the maritime deity who bore them as being the son of the
Theban Ino the nurse of Dionusus.
4. Hercules however appears not only in the character of a warlike and
maritime, but also in that of an infernal, deity. In this particular he at
once resembles Buddha and all the other arkite divinities. Noah, for reasons
which have been already assigned, was esteemed, in the mythology of the
ancients, the god of obsequies and the sovereign of Hades. Hence MenuSatyavrata, who is the same as Buddha-Gautama and who was preserved in
an ark at the time of the deluge, is said to be Sradda-deva or the god of
funerals : and hence it is a part of the office of Buddha or Salivahana to
convey the souls of the dead in a large vessel over the sacred Gangetic river
of Patala or Orcus.
Agreeably to this notion, the diluvian Hercules was supposed, like Bac
chus, Osiris, Adonis, and Woden, to have visited the infernal regions.
Once he descended into the nether world to bring back Alcestis, the wife of
Admetus : another time he liberated from the shades of hell Theseus and
Pirithous, or, as some say, Theseus only. On both these occasions, he
dragged to the realms of day the three-headed dog Cerberus.5
1 Herod. Hist. lib. ii. c. 43.
*Tzctz. in Lycoph. ver. 38. Herod. Hist. lib. it. c. <).
* Herod. Hist. lib. ii. c. 44.
4 Hesych. Lex. Euseb. Praep. Evan. lib. i. c. 10.
s Albric. de deor. imag. c. xxii. p. 324. Hyg. Fab. 51. Apollod. Bibl. lib. ii. c. 5. } 12.
Diod. Bibl. lib. iv. p. 232. Tzeta. in Lycoph. ver. 51, 1328.
**,- v-
384
THE OKIGIN OF PAGAN IDOLATRY.
It is worthy of observation, that, previous to his descent, he was initiated

into the Mysteries of Ceres.1 This is not said of him at random or without
design. The initiation into the Mysteries scenically represented the mythic
descent into Hades and the return from thence to the light of day ; by which
was meant the entrance into the Ark and the subsequent liberation from its
dark inclosure. Such Mysteries were established in almost every part of tle
pagan world : and those of Ceres were substantially the same as the Orgies
of Adonis, Osiris, Hu, Mithras, and the Cabiri. They all equally related to
the allegorical disappearance, or death, or descent, of the great father, at
their commencement ; and to his invention, or revival, or return from Hades,
at their conclusion.*
As Hercules was thought to have descended into hell, and afterwards to
have quitted its gloomy regions in safety ; so he was sometimes decidedly
esteemed an infernal deity, in which capacity sacrifices for the dead were of
fered to him. This was in his character of a Cabirus or Idean Dactylus :
and here he exactly accords with Buddha, or Menu-Sraddadeva, or BaalPeor.'
5. We have seen, that the columnal deity Terminus or Janus was one
of the forms, under which Buddha was adored in the west ; and we shall
presently see, that Mercury was another of those forms. Hercules therefore
being also, as I contend, a form of Buddha, we shall find, that his character
curiously melts into that both of Mercury and Terminus, as the character
of Terminus similarly melts into that of Mercury.
In the collection of count Caylus, there are two representations of the
Celtic Hercules-Ogmius or Hercules-Magusan, copied from an urn found at
Sisteron a small town in Provence. The god appears in each of them as a
perfect Terminus : but the human trunk, which surmounts the upright stone
pillar, is that of a robust man clad in the skin of a lion. In one of the
representations, he holds a club in his hand, thus uniting Hercules with Ter
minus : in the other, he holds the caduceus round which two serpents intwine
themselves, thus blending together the characteristics of Terminus, Her1 Apollod. Bibl. lib. ii. c. 5. i 12. *
3 Ciccr. dc nat. deor. lib. iii. c. l6.
1 Vide infra book v. c. 6.
385
cules, and Mercury. It may be observed, that the caduceus terminates at

its upper extremity in a ring or circle.1 This hieroglyphic was much used
both in the east and in the west. Most of the Hindoo gods are delineated,
holding it in one of their numerous hands : and the Sakwell, or ring of
Buddha-Sakya, is greatly celebrated among the Buddhists. It exhibits the
sacred circle of his consort Ila ; which upon an immense scale is supposed
to exist on the summit of mount Meru, and which alike symbolizes the
Earth and the Ark.
In another plate taken from the collection of count Caylus, Hercules sits
on a large stone playing on the lyre, while his club lies by his side.1 Montfaucon gives a somewhat similar representation of him. The god appears
leaning upon his club and standing near an olive-tree, a branch of which he
holds in his hand. On one side of him, is a blazing altar; and, on the
other, lies his lyre at the foot of the tree.' Here he assumes the character
of the patron of literature and the fine arts : and, while he bears in his hand
a branch of the sacred diluvian olive esteemed by the Celts a symbol of that
universal knowledge which issued from the Ark, or sits upon the massy stone
by which Terminus and Buddha were alike represented, he seems to claim
the invention of the lyre which classical writers ascrihe to Mercury.4
Nor is this resemblance merely accidental or imaginary. It was pointed
out by Lucian, and fully acknowledged by a Gallic mythologist to whom he
made the observation. He tells us, that Hercules was by the Gauls deno
minated Ogmius ; that they depicted him, as an ancient man nearly bald ;
and yet that he had all the air of the Grecian deity, being clad in a lion's
skin, and armed with a club and a bow. But, what appeared to Lucian the
most singular circumstance was, that he was represented drawing after him a
number of men by small golden chains, fastened at one end to their ears
and at the other to his own tongue.
Slender as the chains were, not one of
* Cayl. Ant. vol.i. pi. 88. apud Vallan. Vindic. in Collect, de reb. Hibern. vol. iv. numb.
14. p. 91 , 92. and pi. 2. in fin.
* Cayl. Ant. vol. i. p. 47. Ibid.
1 Mont. Ant. vol. ii.'p. 224. apud Vallanccy Ibid. p. 87.
* Horat. Od. lib. i. od. 10. ver. 6. Apollod. Bibl. lib. iii. c. 5. 5. c. 10. 2. Hyg. Poet.
Astron. lib. ii. c. 7Pag. Idol.
vol. 11.
3 C
386
the persons to whom they were attached seemed to make the least effort to
break them or to express the least wish to extricate himself. On the con
trary, they all followed the god with evident pleasure and eagerness ; for
the chains were slack, and therefore had not the least semblance of dragging
them along by violence. Lucian naturally enough concluded, that this was
an allegorical mode of expressing the powerful effects of eloquence, and
therefore that the god of eloquence among the Gauls was Hercules. On
mentioning his opinion and declaring his surprize, he was informed by a
Gallic philosopher, that his conjecture was perfectly right, that the attributes
of the Grecian Mercury were ascribed by the Gauls to Hercules, and that
with them the warlike god of strength was also the god of eloquence.1 This is
evidently that principal deity of the Gauls, whom Cesar pronounced to be
Mercury, and who was sometimes called Teutates and Hesus.1 lie was the
Woden or Tuisto of the Goths, and the Buddha or Tat or Twashla of their
ancestors in Cashgar and Magadha. He was in short the primitive fountain
of all the knowledge of the postdiluvian world, the real instructor in letters,
and the true author of social order. He was that ancient character, who
was the primeval god 01 the ocean, and who sailed over its mighty waters in
the vessel which his posterity symbolized by a sea-fish and a navicular cup.'
XVII I. A notion prevailed, that one of the exploits of Hercules was the
casting of certain enormous stones into the mouth of the ocean to prevent
the approach of wild animals, or, as some say, to make a sort of rude
bridge over which he might drive the herds of Geryon from Erythia. The
scene of this action is laid in the straits which separate Europe from Africa,
and the stones themselves are called Hermata* This fable bears a near rela
tionship to the similar tale of the construction of Bal-Rama's bridge, which
1 Lucian. apud Banier. Mythol. tol. iii. p. 263, 264.
1 Caesar, de bell. Gall. lib. vi. c. 173 From Hercules-Pot or Hercules-Pouta I am inclined to believe, that his Latin priests
borrowed their name of Putitii. Virgil places at their head an archimage, whom he calls
Potitius : but this was the title of the god himself, assumed by his chief minister. I need
scarcely remark, that Pot or Pouta is the same word as Buddha. See Virgil. iEneid. lib.
viii. ver. 268282.
*Bochart. Canaan, lib. i. c. 37. p- 644.
THE ORIGIN OF PAGAN IDOLATIiY.
387
joined together the continent and the island of Ceylon. It was formed of vast CHAP" T.
stones, and was fabled to be the work of his allies the monkeys. From the
same superstition the name of the giant's causey in Ireland has been appa
rently borrowed. I am much inclined to believe, that the Hermata were of
the terminal kind, and were closely allied to the worship of Buddha : and
I think it most probable, that the famous columns of Hercules ought to be
referred to the same mode of idolatry. They seem to have been reckoned
two stupendous natural Termini or sacred pillars, and were perhaps originally
deemed forms of Buddha or Hercules ; who, we know, both was and still
continues to be venerated under the symbol of a large stone or rude column.
Such at least appears to have been the nature of the Hermata, as we may
infer from the very name ; which curiously joins the worship of HerculesTerminus to that of Hermes or Mercury, and thus brings us by a less direct
course to the long-established position, that the Hermes of the west is the
Buddha of the east
1. The peculiar and primeval form of Mercury was a large stone, fre
quently square, and without either hands or feet. Sometimes the triangular
shape was preferred, sometimes an upright pillar, and sometimes a heap of
rude stones. From the use of this form Kircher was naturally led to
pronounce, that Mercury was the god Terminus of the Egyptians. He was,
I believe, perfectly in the right : Mercury was at once the same as Terminus
and as Buddha ; just as Terminus, Buddha, and Janus, are alike the same as
Hercules. These stones were called Hermce and Hermea ; and the heaps
bore the name of Hermean heaps. The last were accumulated by the cus
tom of each passenger throwing a stone to the daily increasing mass in honoar
of the god. So specially indeed was the stone column esteemed the figure
* of Mercury, that, whenever it was communicated lo other deities, his name
was by the Greeks joined in composition with their names : thus we have a
Herm-Apollo, a Herm-Athene, and a Herm-Eros. Sometimes the Mer
curial pillar was represented with the attributes of Priapus : nor was it
without reason, for ultimately and fundamentally Mercury and Priapus were
each the great universal father, and were each worshipped with the same
mystic abominations. At other times the symbolical column was of a more
complex form : two stone pillars were placed erect in the ground, and were
388
surmounted by a third laid horizontally upon their two summits. This is the
precise form of the immense trilithons of Stonehenge, as the other is that of
three separate upright pillars at Borough-Bridge. I take it, that in each
case the number three was selected in honour of the self-triplicated deity
who was adored as the great father : and the occurrence of such monuments
certainly corroborates the opinion, that Stonehenge was a primeval temple of
Buddha, yet of Buddha venerated in conjunction with the deities of the
Brahmenical pantheon.1
It is astonishing to what a wide extent this mode of worship has spread
itself, and how frequently the rude form of Mercury has been communicated
to other deities.
I have already observed, that exactly such was the common mode of
representing Buddha: whence, exclusive of other reasons, may be inferred
the identity of Buddha and Mercury. To a similar source we must ascribe
the Betulia of the Phenicians mentioned by Sanchoniatho, and the vast
stone columns (as I have just remarked) which are to be found in various
parts of this island.
As Buddha was the great father and the reputed consort of Ila or the
great mother, and as the several forms of the male deity were constantly
ascribed to the female ; when the god bears the semblance of a stone, the
goddess is also represented by the same symbol.* Thus the Phrygian stone
Agdus was venerated, as a form of the mountain-born Cybele ; was supposed
to have been one of those, which Deucalion and Pyrrha cast behind them
after the flood ; and was by superstition believed to be instinct with life.5 It
was of an immense size ; and was probably one of those vast oviform stones,
* Phurnut. de nat. deor. c. l6. Seld. de diis Syr. synt. ii. c. 15. Kircher. (Edip. vEgypt_
yd. i. sect. 4. p. 392. Herod. Hist. lib. ii. c. 51. Buxtorf. Sanhed. c. vii. fol. 60. Macrob.
Saturn, lib. i. c. 19. See also twoelaborate notes of Ouzelius on the Octaviusof Miuucius Felix,
p. 16, 184.
* When the great father is a merman, his consort is a mermaid ; when a horse, a mare ;
-when a bull, a cow ; when a boar, a sow ; or, when a male dove, a female dove. This prin
ciple, fully recognized in the west, is explicitly avowed in the Hindoo theology. See a re
markable passage from one of the Vedas in Asiat. Res. vol. viii. p. 440, 441.
* Arnob. adv. gent. lib. v. p. 157-

of which specimens are to be found in this country.
389
They were placed
perhaps artificially on two smaller ones, like a ship on the stocks ; so as to

leave a narrow door or passage, through which the body of the aspirant
might be pertruded during the process of initiation : and they were designed,
I have little doubt, to represent the. mysterious egg, which equally symbo
lized the World and the Ark, and of which the great mother was the female
genius or personification.1 In a similar manner, Minerva, Venus, and
Manah the Magna Mater of the ancient Arabs, were all worshipped under
the figure of a stone either square or pyramidal : and, from the cube being
esteemed sacred to Rhea, we may infer, that the same shape was attributed
to her likewise.
The intercommunion of deities, and the frequent mixture of the Brahmenical and Buddhic superstitions, caused the form of Buddha to be as
cribed to many of the gods no less than of the goddesses : and the symbol
of a square or conical stone equally represented Apollo, Neptune, and Her
cules.* Pausanias tells us, that the Athenians claimed to be the inventors
of the pillars called Herma, which were appropriated to the very same
purposes as the Termini of the Romans : but this is only one of the many
instances of Greek national vanity ; the very general adoption of such a mode
of worship proves it to have originated in the earliest times and to precede the
dispersion of mankind over the surface of the globe.'
Not only did it prevail both in Asia and in Europe, but we find it also in
plain connection with the worship of Buddha in the islands scattered over
the vast pacific ocean.
I have already had occasion to notice the stone
worship of Dagon in one of those islands ; I may now mention the similar
adoration of Buddha in another of them. The inhabitants of Otaheite ve
nerate as the most ancient of their gods Tatooma and Tapuppa, who are
supposed to be a male and a female rock. These were the parents of
Totorro and two other children : and from them sprang both the world, and
Borlase's Cornwall, p. 174.
See Plate III. Fig. 27.
* Pausan. Achaic. p. 441. Maxim. Tyr. Dissert, xxxviii: p. 374, 375. Seld. de diis Syr.
Proleg. c. iii. p. 52. Sale's Prelim. Disc, to Koran, sect. i. p. 17. See also many instances
collected by Gen. Vallancey. Collect, de reb. Hib. vol. iv. numb. 14. p. 21 6.
1 Pausan. Attic, p. 42, 43.
CHAP. v.
390
book i.
THE ORIGIN OF PAGAN IDOLATMY.
ê wh0ie race pf hero-gods.1
Such religious opinions, attached to such
names, seem to indicate, that those clusters of islands received both their
theology and their population from the south-eastern regions of Asia. Not
only is the principal deity of Otaheite venerated under the imagined sem
blance of a stone, but in his very name two of the most ancient titles of
Buddha are accurately preserved. Buddha is called Tat, and is declared
to comprehend in his own person the essence of the Hindoo Trimurti :
whence the triliteral monosyllable Om or Aum is applied to him, as being
fundamentally and virtually the same as Brahma- Vishnou-Siva. Now the
stone-god Tatooma appears evidently to be the stone-god Tat-Om or
Buddha : and the name of his mythologic son Totorro is probably the same
title Tat or Taut compounded with Aur or Auri, the Horus of the
Egyptians. In fact, the Otaheiteans have a tradition, that two ferocious
males, and an equally ferocious female whose mouth was furnished with two
tusks of a prodigious Size, formerly made their appearance in the island:
but, whence they came, and in what manner they arrived, was unknown.
These were reputed to be devourers of human flesh : yet the woman, when
dead, was ranked among their deities.1 I am inclined to suspect, that she
was the Calee or black goddess of the Hindoos, the Diana Taurica of the
Scythians or Chasas, and the black infernal Venus of the Orphic mythologist ; while the tradition relates to the introduction of those bloody rites,
- which were the never-failing concomitants of Cuthic devotion. ,
The male and female stone-deities of Otaheite are doubtless the great
father and the great mother ; corresponding with the stone Mercury and
Cybele, and with the stone god and stone goddess of the Arabs. These
not only venerated the great mother under the symbol of a square stone, as
I have just observed ; but likewise the great father under the same symbol,
styling him Theus-Arcs or Thoth-Ares? They also denominated him TVudd
or Budd, that is to say, Woden or Buddha : for, that this deity was the
same as Buddha, and consequently that the worship of Buddha was esta
blished in Arabia, is evident, both from the circumstance of his symbol
1 Cook's third voyage, b.iii.c. <).
5 Maxim. Tyr. Dissert, xxxviii. p. 374.
1 Ibid.
Suid. Lex. tuj-Afijj.
THIS ORIGIN OF PAGAN IDOLATRY.
S9 1
being a black stone, and from the sacred impression of his foot being shewn
in the Caaba of Mecca.1
The classical Hermes or Mercury, whatever liberties may have been taken
with his original character, is positively declared to be the same as the Taut
of Phenicia, the Thoth of Egypt, and the Teutates of the Celts.1 His
names and attributes alike prove him to be Buddha.
One of the titles of Buddha, as we have seen, is Tat, Date, or Datta.
Tat is said, in one of his incarnations, to have been a son of Atri, in whose
triple offspring the Hindoo Trimurti was manifested. This is nothing more
than the perpetually repeated story of the transmigrating great father and his
three sons : for the same reappearing primeval triad is equally alluded to in
the several cognate triads of the Brahmenical and Buddhic systems of theo
logy. But what we are at present chiefly concerned with is the destination
of Datta or (as he seems to have been patronymically designated from Atri)
Dattatieya. In the division of the world, the countries bordering on the
Nile fell to his share : hence, as Mr. Wilford justly remarks, he is the Taut
or Thoth of Egypt; and consequently the Egyptian Thoth and the classical
Hermes are indisputably the Indian Tat or Buddha.' But this point may
be further proved by another curious circumstance. The votaries of Buddha
pretend, that certain holy books were divinely communicated to him from
heaven immediately after the deluge. A notion of some books of this
description enters into the theology of almost every nation, and into none
more largely than that of Egypt.* Hermes or Thoth was reported to have
been the author of four sacred books, which treated of astronomy; a
science, as it is well known, immediately connected with the mythology of
the ancients/ He is also said to have decyphered the inscriptions written
on the pillars in the land of Siriad previous to the flood ; a matter, which
immediately connects him with Xisuthrus and the Chaldean account of the
* Asiat. Res. vol. ii. p. 8,9. toI. viii. p. 304, 305.
* Euseb. Prasp. Evan. lib. i. c. 10. Clem. Alex. Strom, lib. i. p. 303. Lactant. Instil,
lib. i. c. 6. Liv. Hist. lib. xxvi. c. 41. Cassar. de bell. Gallic, lib. vi. c. 17. Mimic. Fel.
Octav. p. 49, 295.
1 Asiat. Res. vol. v. p. 261.
* Vide supra b. iii. c. 5.
5 Clem. Alex,. Strom, lib. vi. p. 633.

book it.
deluge.1
So again: in the Phenician mythology, we find Taut, invested
with the sovereignty of Egypt, and superintending the books written by the
seven Cabiri and their eighth brother Asclepius.* Taut therefore is doubtless
the same as Thoth, as Sanchoniatho indeed expressly informs us : and the
books of Taut and the maritime Cabiri, who were the builders of the first
complete ship, are the same as the books of Thoth. Now it is remarkable,
that, as the books of Thoth are said to have been four in number ; so the
Hindoos have a tradition, that their four sacred books were formerly carried
into Egypt, in part legitimately and in part clandestinely.' These were
certainly those books, which the Buddhists ascribe to Buddha and the
Brahmens with equal zeal to Brahma. They were in short the holy volumes
of Menu, who is the same as Buddha : and, in every instance, the story
equally runs, that they were either written or recovered at the time of the
deluge. Some mythojogists modestly ascended no higher than that great
event: others made them coeval with the world, or even placed them
before the creation. Thus we are again led to the conclusion, that the
Thoth or Taut of Egypt and Phenicia is the Tat or Buddha or Ab-BoudTat of Hindostan and Persia and Japan.
Another title of Buddha is Heri-Maya and contractedly Hermaya, that
is to say, the lord Maya : for both he and his mother equally bear the
appellation of Maya, according as the word is masculine or feminine.
This title is clearly the prototype of the Greek Hermes and of the Phenician
Baal-Hermon : and we may observe, that, if in the Hindoo mythology
Maya is the mother of Buddha, in the Greek mythology she is no less the
mother of Hermes or Mercury.
Another of his titles is variously expressed Codom, Gautama, or Cadam.
This was also a name of Hermes ; who was venerated by the Beotians,
Samothracians, and Tuscans, under the kindred appellations of Cadmilus,
Casmilus, and Camillas.* The obvious and close resemblance of these titles
1 Syncell. Chronog. p. 40.
* Euseb. Pra-p. Evan. lib. i. c. 10.
5 Asiat. Res. vol. iii. p. 75.
* Tzetz. in Lycoph. ver. 162. Mnas. apud Schol. in Apoll. Argon, lib. i. ver. 91 7. Macrob. Saturn, lib. iii. c. 8. Serv. in iEnaid. lib. xi. p. 650. The ancient Irish had, in a
limilar manner, their Cadmaol or Casmaol. Collect, de rcb. Hib. vol. iv. p. 494.
39$
to each other renders it more than probable, that they are one and the same
name differently pronounced :
and that name I take to be compounded of
Cadarn and Ilus. Another of the names of Buddha or Menu is Cala or Time ; a title, closely
connected, in point of import, with the Cronus or Chronus of the Greeks.1
This is the masculine form of Cali : for there is a goddess Cali as well as a
god Cala, in like manner as there is a goddess 11a and a god Ilus. Cala
and Cali, or Ilus and Ila, are that great universal father and mother, who
were jointly venerated under so many different titles throughout the pagan
world : in other words, they are the transmigrating Noah and the mundane
Ark. Accordingly we find, that, as the Hindoos gave the name of Cala
to Menu or Buddha, who was saved at the period of a general deluge; so
in the sacred books of the Persians mention is made of an universal inunda
tion, there named the deluge of Time, which is equivalent to the deluge of
Cala.1 It was from this title of Buddha, unless I greatly mistake, that the
old Irish borrowed the sacred appellation Cal or Coll, which they bestowed
upon their god Tat or Taut, whom we have already seen to be the same as
Buddha or Thoth or Taut or Teutates. He was their Hercules-Mercury,
whom the Goths or Scythians venerated under the name of Wudd or Woden.
Sometimes they called him Cull, which is only a slight variation of the same
radical word : and, in honour of him, either they or their Celtic brethren of
Scotland, designated one of the small sacred islands which lie between that
country and Ireland by the name of Coll, as they have given to others the
titles of Bute, Arran, Ila, Hy, and Iona, from Buddha, Arhan, Tla, -Hu,
and Yoni or Ioneh. The Celts of Spain used the same word in the appa
rently compound form of Goles, which naturally resolves itself into Col-Esa.
Under this name, as we learn from de la Stonosa, they worshipped Hercules ;
that is to say Hercules- Mercury, who was the same as Woden or Buddha.
The name itself however, like most of those by which the Celtic gods were
designated, is-of oriental extraction : for the ancient Chaldeans venerated
Mercury under the appellation of Colis or Culis. Their Cutis was certainly
the Cala or Cal-Esa of the Hindoos, and the Goles of the Celtiberians.
' Asiat. Res. vol. i. p. 239, 240.
Pag. Idol.
* Ibid. p. 240.
vol. ii.
3 D
T,
394
book iy.
THE ORIGIN OF PACAN IDOLATRY.
This widely spreading name will furnish perhaps the true etymology of the
titles hoth of Hercules and Mercury; who were fundamentally one divinity,
and who equally identify themselves with Buddha or Taut. Since the Baby
lonians and the Celts styled that deity Cull or Cities or Goles, if we prefix
the Sanscrit Heri or Lord, which perpetually enters into the composition of
the names of the Hindoo gods, we shall immediately have Heri-Cules or
Hercules : and, if again we prefix to the same word the title Mer, which
may possibly be compounded of Maha and Heri, thus denoting the great
lord, we shall in a similar manner have Mer-Cules. This last title actually
prevailed among the Chaldeans : for they indifferently called the god Taut
or Mercury Colis or Mercolis. At least, if there were any difference in the
application of the names, it was no more than this : Colis was the deity,
and Mercolis was the rude terminal statue of the deity. That statue consisted
of three huge rough stones, two of them placed upright, and a third trans
versely on their summits. Mercury or Hermes then being certainly the same
deity as Colis or Mercolis, we can scarcely doubt that the name Mercury is
a mere corruption of the name Mercolis.1
From this title Cala, Cull, or Coll, the Greeks formed Cullcnius or CylItnius, which they used as an epithet of Mercury. Sometimes he was re
ported to be the son of a female, named Cullene : at other times he was said
to have been born of Maia, who in the cave Cullene submitted to the embraces
of Jupiter : and there are mythologists, who make one at least of the Mer
curies to be the offspring of Qujlleuus or Culenus.* All these are only
variations of one original title ; which in the masculine form was expressed
Cala or Cula, in the feminine Cali or Culi.
1 Vallancey's Vinil. apud Collect, de rcb. Ilib. vol. iv. p. 82, 84, 291, 480. Plantavit.
Hcb. Lex. and De la Stonosa on anc. Span, medals, apud Vallanc. ibid. Seld. de diis Syr.
synt. ii. c. 15. Beyer. Addit. in Seld. ibid. See likewise an elaborate note of Ouzel on the
Octav. of Min. Fel. p. 15. The expression by Goles, used as a vulgar oath, is still not quite
obsolete. This deity, who was ever esteemed an infernal god, seems to have been the proto
type of those sepulchral demons of Arabic fiction, which are denominated Gouls, and which
are feigned to dig up and devour the bodies of the dead. They frequently occur in tho
Arabian Nights entertainments.
1 Schol. in Stat. I hebaid. lib. iii. vcr. 483. Serv. in Êneid. lib. iv. ver. 577. Ampel. c.
D- Apoll. Bibl. lib. iii. c. 10. 2.

Buddha is likewise called Sac or Sacya : and, in a similar manner, his
western counterpart was denominated Soc or Socus.' This Socus I take to
be the same term as Souchus or Suchus, which, as Damascius informs us,
was a name of the crocodile.* The appellation was doubtless communicated
to that animal, on account of its being one of the sacred diluvian symbols.
Accordingly we find, that Anuhis or Thoth, the Egyptian Mercury, was
represented standing upon the crocodile, and that Menes the first king of
Egypt was supposed to have saved himself on the back of one of those
aquatic monsters during the prevalence of an inundation.' The crocodile in
short was an hieroglyphic of the Ark, as is evident from the circumstance of
the Egyptians denominating it Campsa, which Hesychius assures us signifies
an ark or chest.* On the same account, as Menu or Manes was the god of
the Ark, the Hindoos still call the sacred allegator of the Ganges Muni}
3. But it is not similarity of titles alone, which proves the identity of
* Buddha and Mercury : there are many particulars in the legendary history of
the latter deity, which also demonstrate, that, as he is one with Hercules
who has been shewn to be Buddha, so (what indeed necessarily lollows) he
is the same as Buddha and consequently the same as Noah
The mother of Buddha is said to have been called Maya : the mother of
Mercury bears the name of Maia. The fourth day of the week is by the
Hindoos denominated the day of Buddha : by the Latins it was called the
day of Mercury, as by the Goths the day of Woden? The planet, which
revolves in the orbit nearest to the Sun, is distinguished among the Hindoos
by the appellation of Buddha : in the west the very same planet was denomi' Pburn. de nat. deor. c. 16. Nonni Dion. lib. xiii. Horn. Iliad, lib. xx. ver. 79. Suid.
Lex.
* Damas. vit. Isid. apud Phot. Bibl. p. 1048.
* Montfauc. Ant. Exp. vol. ii. part ii. p. 197. Diod. Bibl. lib. i. p. 80.
* Herod, [list. lib. ii. c. 69. Hesych. Lex.
5 Moor's Ui:.d. Panih. p. 143. Typhon being mystically the tame as Osiris, Osiris having
entered into an ark, and a crocodile being a symbol of that ark; we find a notion prevalent,
tkat the soul of Typhon passed into a crocodile. By this nothing more was meant, than that
Koah was shut up in the Ark. Lilian. Hist. Anim. lib. x. c. 2L.
* Asiat. Res. vol. i. p. 169. vol. iii. p. 562. Maurice's Hist, of Hind. vol. ii. p. 481.
396
book iv.
THE OUIGIN OF PAGAN IDOLATRY.
nated, and still continues to be denominated, Mercury ox Stilbon.1
Buddha
is represented by a large stone, frequently of a black colour : Mercury was

represented by a large stone, likewise frequently of a black colour.
Such arbitrary coincidences as these cannot be purely accidental : they
seem to me to prove, with as much evidence as the subject is capable of
admitting, that the western Mercury, Hermes, or Thoth, is the same cha
racter as the oriental Mercolis, Hermaya, or Tat; the same therefore as
Buddha.
4. The fabulous history of the classical Hermes, corrupted as it may be,
plainly leads us to that ancient personage, who was the head and universal
father of the renovated world. Though the mythology of the west acknow
ledged several Mercuries, as that of the east recognizes more than one
Buddha, I incline to believe, that they may all be ultimately reduced to
Noah considered as a reappearance of Adam. The legend however of the
western Mercury seems peculiarly to refer him to Noah, and thus to make *
him the same as the younger or diluvian Buddha of the east.
He was variously reported to be the son of Jupiter and Maia, of Bacchus
and Proserpine, of Uranus and Hemera, of Cronus and Maia, of Jupiter
and Cullene, of Valens and Phoronis, of the river Nile, and of Quillenus
or Cullenius.* In reality, he was the offspring of the great universal arkite
mother however denominated, and the same person as his reputed manynamed father : for Noah, according to the different lights in which he was
viewed, was indifferently esteemed the parent, the husband, the brother, or
the son, of the vessel in which he was preserved ; and Maia, Proserpine,
Phoronis, and Cullene whether considered as a nymph or as a sacred cavern,
are all equally the World and the Ark, all equally the general mother both
of gods and men. Such accordingly was the character of Maya or Maia,
who is most commonly reckoned the parent of the god, both in the east and
in the west: her very name denotes the great mother.1
From Maia Mercury was by the old Etruscans called in the masculine
1 Asiat. Res. vol. iii. p. 258. vol. i. p. l62. vol. ii. p. 375.
* Schol. in Stat. Thebaid. lib. iii. ver. 483. Cicer. de nat. dcor. lib. iii. c. 22.
tEneid. lib. iv. vcr. 577. Ampel. c. 9- Lactant. Instit. lib. i. c. 6.
3 Asiat. Res. vol. i. p. 223. Macrob. Saturn, lib. i. c. 12.
Serv. in
,

form Maius, exactly as Buddha is denominated Maya or Moye.
3i)7
Macrobius
supposes this Maius to be Jupiter: but I believe him to have no better

reason for his conjecture, than his finding that Maius was the principal
Etruscan deity.1 The title Maius is evidently the masculine form of Maia :
and Maius and Maia, like Osiris and Isis, Adonis and Venus, Janus and
Jana, and other similar duads, are the two great parents of the Uniyerse,
the transmigrating Noah and the mundane Ark. From this god and goddess
the month of May received its denomination : and, at its commencement,
when the Sun entered into Taurus, were celebrated in their honour those
phallic Mysteries, of which the now almost obsolete May-games are a
transcript and a relic.*
As Mercury or Maius then was the great father, we find much the same
actions ascribed to him, as were wont to be given to Dionusus, Osiris,
Phoroneus, Inachus, or Cronus. He was the inventor of music, astronomy,
and letters : he was the general civilizer of man, when rude in the first infant
state of society: he was the author of language: he was the primitive legis
lator : he was the first distributor of mankind into national communities :
he was said to have composed certain ancient sacred books, when in the
days of the seven Cabiri or Corybantes the first ship was launched on the
ocean : and he was the peculiar messenger of the gods, whose office it was to
convey their high behests to the ears of sinful mortals ; in other words, he
was that preacher of righteousness, who long fruitlessly denounced the ven
geance of heaven to an irreclaimable world.5 Hence we find him placed in
the age of Inachus the son of Ocean, of the nymph Archia or Argha, and
of their offspring Phoroneus ; who was deemed the first of men. Originally,
we are told, mankind used but one language, and lived under the empire of
1 Macrob. Saturn, lib. i. c. 12. p. 171.
1 Mr. Strutt, in his romance of Quccn-IIoo Mall, hae given a curious account of these
games as celebrated by our ancestors in the middle ages. I strongly suspect, that, from an
accidental similarity of names, the bold outlaw Robin Hood has usurped the place of the
Celtic Budd or Scandinavian Wudd, and the maid Mariau that of Main. The mythology of
one age becomes the festive romance of another.
* Horat. Od. lib. i. od. 10. Phurnut. dcnat. deor. c. l6. Macrob. Saturn, lib. i. c. 19.
p. 203. Lactan. Instit. lib. i. c. 6. Nonni Dionys. lib. xiii. Euseb. Praep. Evan. lib. i. c.
10. Diod. Bibl.lib. i.p. 15. Mauil. Astion. lib. i. p. 2. 1 Pet. iii. 20. 2 Pet. ii. 5.
cm*. y-
398
THX OUIGIN OF PAGAN IDOLATRY.
Jove without cities and without laws. But Mercury taught them various
languages, and divided them into separate nations. Thence arose discord :
but the earliest sovereign was Phoroneus, who was dignified with that
honour, because he first instituted sacred rites to Juno ; the Juneh of Holy
Writ, and the Yoni or Argha of the Hindoos, who, after floating as a ship
on the surface of the deluge, flew away in the shape of a dove.1 Of this cu
rious history it is not very easy to mistake the import. There could have been
only one primeval universal sovereign and legislator : and, whether he he
called Inachus the son of Ocean, or Phoroneus the offspring / Archia, or
Mercury the child of Maia ; still we may plainly enough perceive,, that the
person so shadowed out as existing in the infancy of the world when as yet
there whs but one language, though that language was afterwards suhdivided
into various didects, can be no other than the patriarch Noah, viewed per
haps in the last instance as reappearing in the charac ter of Nimrod.
5. I have repeated y had occasion to notice the circumstance ol the great
father being deemed an infernal god , while the interior of the Ark or the
Earth was esteemed the region of Hades, and the deluge its sacred lake or
river. Thus, in the Hindoo mythology, Menu-Satvavrata or liuddha, who
was preserved in an ark during the prevalence of an universal floo.l, is vene
rated as Si addadeva or the god of obsequies und is thought to ferry the
souls of the deceased over the Gange> considered as the holy stream of
Patala or Orcus.
Similar to this was the office oi the western Mercury.
He was the conductor of the dead from the liigner to the nether world, and
he also possessed the power ol evocating them from Hades. As such the
Orphic poet makes him the same as Bacchus or Osiris 1
XIX. The Taut of Phenicia and the Thoth of Egypt are rightly pro
nounced by the translator of Sanchoniatho to be the same as tne Hermes of
Greece: and they must also be palpahly identified with the Indian Tat or
Datta, who, like Taut, is said to have reigned in Egypt. Hence the cha
racter of each is precisely such, as might he antic pated.
1. In Phenicia, Taut was reputed to be the original inventor of letters,
the counsellor and secretary of Cronus, the first wbo constructed images of
' Hyg. Fab. 143.
1 Orph. Hymn. lvi. iEneid. lib. iv. yer. 242, 345.
399
the gods, and the primitive contriver of the hieroglyphical mode of writing.
cn\r. v.
He was associated with the Cabiri, who built the first ship. He was the
author of certain wonderful books. And he was the parent of all the arts
and sciences.1
U. In a similar manner, Thoth was supposed by the Egyptians to have
been the author of literature : and was thought to have written many books
relative to the knowledge of divine things, in which he sets forth the majesty
of the Supreme God, and declares that he is self-existent and without any
proper name. He was a character of profound antiquity, and was deeply
versed in every science.
He was reputed to be the first cultivator of the
vine : and he held so high a rank among the immortals, that from his name
Theuth or Theus both the Greeks and Latins seem to have borrowed their
special appellation of the Deity. He was even esteemed the most ancient
of the gods, the common parent and origin of them all.*
The Egyptians honoured him with the title of Thrice-greatest ; and, when:
united with this adjunct, the Greeks expressed his name Hermes-Trismegistus. I have little doubt, that he received the appellation from the idea
which prevailed so commonly throughout the gentile world, that the Magnus
Pater was a three-fold being. This opinion was sometimes expressed under
the notion of a mystic self-triplication : at other times, it was more simply
and truly set forth in the tradition, that the first and most ancient of the
hero-gods begot three sons. Accordingly we find, that Buddha or HermesTrismegistus is generally worshipped in a kind of triad, and is declared to be
fundamentally the same as the great triple divinity of the Hindoos. In re
ference to this part of his character, which (as I believe) procured for him
the title of Trismegistus, we find him sometimes represented with three heads ;
whence Lycophron calls him Tricephalus? Tzetzes thinks, that his threeheads related to his triple dominion over the heaven, the sea, and the earth,
1 Euseb. Prsp. Evan. lib. i. c. 10.
* Cicer. de nat. dcor. lib. iii. c. 22. Lactant. In&tit. lib. i. c. 6. . Anthol. lib. i. p. 91.
Euscb. Piasp. Evan. lib. i. c. 10. The Sanscrit Deva and Deo arc words of a common oiigin
with Theus and Dots. We Saxons have, in a similar manner, borrowed our name of the
Divinity from Godam or Gaud, which is a title of Buddha.
1 Lycoph. Cassan. vcr. 680.
400
nooic iv.
or to his empire physical, ethical, and rational.1
But these are mere refine
ments upon primitive tradition. Noah, viewed as a reappearance of Adam,

was esteemed the universal sovereign of what the Hindoos call ihe three
worlds, that is to say, of the Universe divided into three parts : but the idea
of this triple division originated from the very same source as that of the
triplication of the great father himself. The earth was partitioned among the
three sons of Noah : and from that circumstance the ancients borrowed their
idea of a threefold world, and their notion (as expressed in the Orphic
writings) that all things were divided into three parts. That such was the
case, evidently appears from the nature of the three kingdoms assigned to
Jupiter, Neptune, and Pluto, the three sons of Cronus or Saturn. Every
part of the history of this last deity proves him to be the transmigrating Noah:
whence, in the relationship in which they stand to him, his three sons must
be the three sons of that patriarch. But those three sons divided the world
among them : and, in the fabled division of the Universe between the three
sons of Saturn, heaven fell to the lot of Jupiter, the sea to the lot of Neptune,
and the earth or infernal regions to the lot of Pluto.* Now these three king
doms are precisely the three worlds of the Hindoos, and the three divisions of
the Universe over which the three-headed Hermes presided. But they are
likewise the three kingdoms of Shem, Ham, and Japhet : for the three sons of
Saturn are the three sons of Noah. Hence the fable, mentioned by Tzetzes,
will ultimately be found to mean, that Hermes-Trismegistus, the original
sovereign of the world and the most ancient of the gods, reigned over its
three divisions in the persons of those three sons into whom he has triplicated
himself. Tzetzes however assigns yet a third reason for the triple form of
Hermes : he says, that he had three daughters by Hecate. This throws
'additional light on the preceding remarks.
Hecate was the same as
Proserpine, Ceres, or the great infernal mother : and, as seven Cabiras or
Titanides were sometimes added to the seven Cabiri or Titans, so with more
arithmetical propriety were the three daughters of the great father assigned
as wives to his three sons.
1 Tzetz in loc.
1 The i-arth and the infernal regions wore used by the old mycologists as synonymous terms,
probably from the opinion that the latter were placed in the very heart of the former. Hence
the infernal gods were called Chthonii or terrestrial.
TMI ORIGIN OF PAOAN IDOIATRY.
401
The character, which Thoth bore among the Egyptians, has been well CBA*- vsummed up by Diodorus Siculus.
He held the same office about the person of Osiris, as the Phenician Taut
did about that of Cronus : he was his writer of the sacred letters, and his
peculiar adviser in all difficult emergencies. He possessed a wonderful
talent of discovering all things useful to mankind. He first taught the mode
of articulating distinctly ; and gave names to many things, which before had
no names. He invented letters ; and arranged in decent order every matter,
that respected the worship and sacrifices of the gods. He was the first, that
distributed the stars into constellations, and that observed the nature and
harmony of sounds. He was the inventor of the lyre ; to which he gave
three strings, acute, grave, and middle, in imitation of the three seasons of
the year, summer, winter, and spring. He was the planter of the olivetree, no less than the original cultivator of the vine: and, when Osiris
vested the administration of Egypt in the hands of Isis, he appointed him
to be her most trusty adviser. In fine, the Egyptian priests summarily
asserted, that he was the inventor of every thing which related to education,
and the author of the whole circle of the arts and sciences.1 But these are
precisely the characteristics, which every ancient nation ascribed to the first
of their gods or the oldest of their kings ; characteristics, which, considering
the age wherein Thoth is placed, that of Osiris, Cronus the Cabiri, and the
first ship, can properly belong to Noah alone.
XX. Mercury-Socus, or Buddha-Saca, or Thoth, was supposed to be the
father of the seven Corybantes or Cabiri : and, in the Phenician mythology,
Taut is represented as imposing on the seven Cabiri the task of transcribing
his sacred book, while those Cabiri are said to be the children of Sydyk
or the Just Man.1 Now we learn from Pherecydes, that Vulcan espoused
Cabira the daughter of the oceanic Proteus, who bore to him the three Cabiri
and the three Cabirae ; and, from Herodotus and Hesychius, that he was
esteemed the father of the seven Cabiri.' Hence, as Thoth and Vulcan
and Sydyk are alike exhibited to us as the parents of the same Cabiri, they
1 Diod. Bibl. lib. i. p. 14, 15, 41.
* Nonni Dionys. lib. xiii. p. 233. Euseb. Praep. Evan. lib. i. c. 10.
5 Pherec. apud Strab. Geog. lib. x. p. 472. Herod. Hist. lib. iii. c. 37Pag. Idol.
vol. ii.
Hcsych. Lex.
3E
402
THE OR/IGIN OF PAGAN IDOLATRY.
must evidently be one mythological character. We are led therefore to the

conclusion, that Vulcan also must be identified with Thoth or Buddha.
Jamblichus informs us, that the Egyptians called this divinity Phtha, and
that as the maker of all good things he bore likewise the name of Osiris ;
but that the Greeks retained only that part of his character, which respected
his being an artizan.1 I suspect, that this word Phtha is only a quick
mode of pronouncing Butta or Putta, and at the same time that it is the
foundation of the Greek Hephaistus and of the Aphthas of Suidas. As for
the identity of Phtha and Osiris, I take it to be of the same nature as that of
Buddha and Iswara : they are gods of different superstitions indeed, but
their votaries saw plainly enough that fundamentally they were one person ;
and that person, in his human capacity, is certainly the transmigrating Noah.
Accordingly, though Vulcan be celestially the solar fire, there is enough in
his history to shew that he is also a maritime deity.
The part of the character of Noah, which relates to his being a profound
mechanic and the constructor of the Ark, is that which the classical Vulcan
peculiarly exhibits ; the Greeks omitting those other attributes, which the
Egyptians additionally ascribed to him. He is Buddha, considered as the
great architect Twasbta; who is mythologically said to be the father of
Maga, as Vulcan in the Phenician history is made the progenitor of Magus/
But, on what account he was specially esteemed an artist, is evident, both
from his being the same as Osiris or Noah, and from his close connection
with the maritime Cabiri. They also, like their father, were reckoned skil
ful artizans : but their grand work was the building of the first ship. Over
this work the chief artist Vulcan, as the parent and head of the Cabiri, no
doubt presided. Hence, as being decidedly maritime deities, we find them
represented accordingly. Herodotus mentions, that the statues of Vulcan
and his children the Cabiri were in form like the Pata'ici.' These were small
figures, which the Phenicians were accustomed to place at the heads of their
gallies on account of their supposed influence in maritime affairs, precisely in
the same manner as the Greeks did those of the Dioscori or Cabiri.4 The
1 Jamb, de myster. sect. viii. c. 3.
1 Asiat. Res. vol. ix. p. 74. Euseb. Praep. Evan. lib. i. C 10.
3 Herod. Hist. lib. iii. c. 37* Ibid.
403
Patai'ci indeed seem to have been no other than the Cabiri, who were highly
venerated among the Phenicians, and who were thought to secure their vota
ries from the violence of tempests. * The name itself is probably the com
pound Pat-Isa or Bad-Isa : at least the chief Pataicus or Cabirua was he,
whom the orientals call Buddha or Budd-Isa or Pouti-Sat. Vulcan and
the seven Cabiri constitute, by whatever different names they may have been
designated, the primitive eight gods of Egypt.1 The names of these eight
deities are not given by Herodotus, except that he mentions Pan as being
one of them : but the great Chronicle enumerates among them both Vulcan
and Helius.' They were clearly the arkite ogdoad : and, as such, they
were represented, not standing on dry land, but floating together in a ship.
This ogdoad Pherecydes, as I have recently stated, exhibits to us in its per
fect form by making Vulcan the father of the three Cabiri and the three
Cabirae by the sea-nymph Cabira.
Vulcan's character as an artist, exactly in the same manner as that of the
grand artizan Twashta, was supposed by the Egyptians to extend to the
whole world. Hence Jamblichus speaks of him, as being the demiurgic
Nous, the wise president of generation, the being who brings to light the
obscure power of all hidden matters.* This Nous ; who was esteemed like
Menu the Soul or Mind of the Universe, who built or created the smaller
World or the Ark, who was reckoned the plastic father of the greater World
when renovated after the deluge, who was the god of generation because all
things were produced anew from his consort the Ark, and who was repre
sented by the old mythologists as bringing those things from darkness into
light because he brought them from the dark interior of the diluvian Ship
into the light of open day : this Nous is certainly the same as that primeval
Nous of the Platonists, who was himself produced from an egg wrapt in
storms and tossed by tempests, and who afterwards generated from his own
essence three younger Noes. In each particular, Vulcan or Phtha or the
creative Intelligence of the Egyptians agrees with the Nous of the Orphean
and Platonic schools. He was thought to have been born from an egg,
1 Aristoph. Ircn. ver. 275. Schol. in loc.
* Herod. Hist. lib. ii, c. 43,
1 Chron. Magn. apud Banier. Mythol. vol. i. p. 493.
4 Jamb, de myst. sect. viii. c. 3.
C"AP' v-
404
norm iv.
wiiich proceeded out of the mouth of Cneph ; and he was the father of three
sons named the Cabiri.1
In classical mythology Vulcan is said to be the husband of Venus : but
this does not differ in effect from the preceding account of Pherecydes,
which makes him the consort of Cabira the daughter of Proteus. The seanymph Cabira and the maritime Venus were the very same person : each
was equally the Ark or great mother. This identity appears, not only from
the connection of them lwth with the ocean, but from their very names
themselves. Cabira or Cabar was an oriental title both of the goddess
and the planet Venus : and Astarte, the Phenician Venus, was reputed to
be the mother of the seven Titanides or Cabirae by the god Cronus.*
Venus however was not the only goddess, whom even classical mythology
esteemed the wife of Vulcan. Cincius tells us, that his consort was called
Maia, and that from her was derived the name of the month of May ; while Piso
affirms, that her proper denomination was Maiesta.1 These accounts are iu
substance the same ; for Maiesta is Maia united in composition with Sita,
which is both a Hindoo, a Sicilian, a Phenician, and a Celtic, title of Maya
or Argha or Ceres or Parvati. Now Maia was the mother of Buddha or
Mercury : whence, according to the system of mythologic genealogies, we
are again brought to the conclusion, that Buddha and Vulcan are the same
character, differing no more from each other than Buddha, Jain, and Mahiman.
Agreeably to this conclusion, Vulcan or Phtha was by the Egyptians
esteemed the father of the gods : whence there was an inscription upon the
portal of the temple at Heliopolis, dedicating it to him in that express capa
city.4 In the Phenician history he is called Chryson : and his location there
has led some writers into the opinion, that Vulcan both in name and charac
ter is the Tubalcain of Scripture. But his very attributes seem to me to
prove, that his location is a genealogical error, and that he is truly the pa
triarch Noah : for he is said to have been a great mechanic, to have been
* Porph. apud Euscb. Praep. Evan. lib. iii. c. 11.
* Euthym. Zegab. Panop. apud Seld. de diis Syr. p. 211. Cedren. Chronog. Euseb. Praep.
Evan. lib. i. c. 10.
1 Macrob. Saturn, lib.i. c. 12.
* Herraap. apud Marcellin. lib. xxii. c. 15.
THE OaiOIN OF PAOAN IDOLATRY.
405
skilled in metallurgy, to have been a profound divine or prophet, to have CHAp- *'
been the original inventor of light boats, and above all to have
first of men that sailed upon the ocean.1
XXI. As Vulcan was deemed by the Egyptians the parent of
and was thought to be the father of the Cabiric deities : so we find
the same character ascribed by them to Pan or Mendes ; for they
been the
the gods,
precisely
reckoned
him one of the eight primeval divinities who preceded the twelve inferior,
and even esteemed him the most ancient of all.1 They placed him therefore,
like Vulcan, at the head of the Cabiric ogdoad : whence it will follow, that
he must be the same person as Vulcan, and consequently the same also as
Thoth or Buddha.
1. Phurnutus speaks of him as being a very ancient demon ; and, from
the indecent mode in which he was represented, suspects him to be nearly
allied to Priapus.' Unhappily the phallic worship was common to both
superstitions ; and, as Pan was thought to be the son of Mercury, and as
he was really the great father ; he was depicted in the very same emble
matical manner as Mercury himself, and was esteemed the masculine presi
dent of generation.4
2. With respect to the period in which he flourished, since he is expressly
declared to be the eldest even of the eight primitive gods, we find him
rightly placed in the age of Dionusus, Osiris, Typhou, and the Titans.
Like Anubis or Thoth, he was supposed to have attended Osiris in his
travels ; and classical mythology ever makes him the companion of Silenus,
Bacchus, and the Satyrs. When the hero-gods were attacked by Typhon
or the ocean, he advised them to assume the forms of different animals ; on
which occasion he metamorphosed himself into a monster compounded of a
goat and a fish, the Capricorn of the zodiac. Under this shape he plunged
into the sacred river Nile, itself a symbol of the deluge ; and thus escaped
the threatened destruction.5
' Sanchon. apud Euseb. Praep. Evan. lib. i. c. 10.
* Herod. Hist. lib. ii. c. 4<5, 145.
3 Phurn. de nat. deor. c. 27.
4 Diod. Bibl. lib. i. p. 78, 79- Clem. Alex. Cohort, p. 40.
5 Ovid. Fast. lib. i. ver. 393404. Diod. Bibl. lib. i. p. 16. Hyg. Poet. Astron. lib. ii.
c. 28. Hyg. Fab. 196. Eratos. Catast. c. 27-
406
THE ORIGIN OFPAGAN IDOLATRY.
3. The Orphic poet celebrates him, as the universal father, the lord of
the world, and the true horned Zeus or Jupiter : and he describes him, as
being an infernal god, the helper or conductor of ghosts like Mercury.1 He
also speaks of him as delighting to reside in caves : a part of his character
which is common to nearly all the arkite gods, who are continually repre
sented, either as dwelling in caverns, as being nursed in caverns, or as being
born from caverns. Porphyry has written a whole treatise on the subject, in
which he gives many instances of this mode of worship : and he informs us,
that the sacred cave represented the World. But the World and the Ark
were venerated in mystic intercommunion : the consecrated grotto therefore
shadowed out the latter as much as the former. Hence the birth of the
great father from a cave denoted his birth from the Ark. Porphyry men
tions a cave in Arcadia dedicated to Pan and the Moon :* and we find a
notion prevalent, that he gained the love of the Moon.' By this it was
meant, that he was the husband of the Ark. He was highly venerated by
the Arcadians, who borrowed both their name and their superstition from
the ship Argha ; insomuch that he was peculiarly styled the god of Arcadia.
Here he was venerated as a sylvan deity, who presided over herds of cattle,
and who delighted to roam upon the summits of the loftiest mountains. He
was likewise esteemed a guardian of orchards and a planter of vines ; and
he was represented with a sickle or pruning-knife in his hand fit for the pur
pose of dressing vineyards.4 In short, to use the language of Scripture
when it speaks of his prototype, he was a husbandman or man of the earth.
Yet, while the Arcadians adored him in conjunction with the Moon ; they
had a remarkable opinion among them, that they themselves were prior to
that planet.1 This was true of them as a family : for the primeval arkites
were of course prior to the vessel, which they built, and which was astrono
mically represented by the Moon.
* The very curious and learned translation of the Orphic hymns seems to me to render tpavTtttriuiv properly by larvarum. Orph. Hymn. x.
1 Porph. deant. nymph, p. 263.
3 Virg. Georg. lib. iii. ver. 392, 393.
4 Ovid. Fast. lib. ii. ver. 271 278. Phurn. de nat. deor. c. 27.
s Ovid. Fast. lib. i. ver. 469, 470. lib. ii. ver. 290. lib. v. ver. 89, 90. Apoll. Argon, lib.
iv. ver. 264. Lycoph. Cassan. ver. 482. Tzetx. in loc.
THE ORIGIN OF PAGAN IDOLATRY*.
407
XXII. In the mythology of Hindostan, Maya is represented, not only

as the mother of Buddha, but likewise as the parent of the amatory god
Cama, who must evidently be identified with the Cupid and Eros of the
west.1 The Indian and the classical writers have agreed in sinking the cha
racter of this deity into that of a boyish mischievous urchin, who peculiarly
delights in the cross purposes of love : yet his genuine primeval attributes
were by no means forgotten : and both those attributes, and his birth from
Maya, prove him to be the same personage as Buddha.
1. Hesiod celebrates him, as born at the very commencement of time,
when the earth first emerged from that chaotic deluge which regularly in
tervenes between world and world.1 Aristophanes gives a similar account
of him ; but adds, that he sprang from an egg produced in the bosom of
Erebus by Night or the black Venus, that he was the general father of the
human race, and that he called them forth in some remarkable manner from
darkness into light.1 Exactly accordant is the language of the Orphic poet.
He speaks of him, as having the keys of the Universe, and as alike presiding
over the sea and the air and the earth : he represents him also, as having
equal power in Hades, or as being an infernal god : and he mysteriously
styles him the double divinity ; a title, which he similarly gives to the per
sonage whom he calls thefirst-born, and whom he describes as issuing from
a tempest-tossed egg and as being the common parent both of hero-gods and
of men.4
2. These tales of the western mythologists, when stripped of their sym
bolical attire, denote only, that the primeval Cupid was born out of a
floating machine at the close of a general deluge, that his family at that time
emerged from darkness to the light of day, and that he was the ancestor of
all mankind whether deified or not deified.
Agreeably to such speculations when rightly understood, the Hindoos say,
that their Cama was once seized by a terrific demon, who placed him in a
chest or ark, and then cast him into the ocean. The ark was swallowed by
a large fish : but, the fish being taken, the ark and the child which it con1 Asiat. Res. vol. i. p. 255.
5 Aristoph. Av. ver. 6<)4.
1 Hesiod. Theog. ver. Il6123.

* Orph. Hymn, lvii, v.
408
r.oo iv.
THK OUIGIX OF PAGAN IDOLATHY.
tained were discovered by Reti the consort of Cama.
She, seeing an infant
within it, privately brought him up, until he had sufficient strength to destroy
the malignant Sambara who had sought his death. Henceforth, though Reti
was his consort, she was considered also as his mother.1
Th is is the precise story, which occurs so repeatedly in the legends of the
hero-gods, and which can admit of only one interpretation : but it peculiarly
resembles the fable of Osiris, Horus, Isis, and Typhon ; which is in fact the
point where the two superstitions blend together. Plutarch tells us, that
the elder Horus was the same as the god Caimis, and that his consort was
named Rhytia.
These are manifestly the Cama and the Reti of the
Hindoos. By the elder Horus I specially understand Buddha : but, the
fable being common to both the great superstitions inasmuch as they were
both chiefly founded on traditions relative to the deluge, we fin it equally
tcld of Osiris and the younger Horus. Tdus Osiris is said to have been
inclosed in an ark by Smu or Typhon, and to have been cast into the Nile
which represented the ocean : and thus Horîs, when pursued by the same
monster, was hid by Latona in the sacred island Chemmis, which was sup
posed to float in a deep lake near the city Butos. The names of these
places sufficiently shew, what deity was worshipped there.
Chemmis
received its appellation from Caimis, the elder Horus ; who is the same as the
Cama or Cam-Isa of the Hindoos, the Caraes or Chemosh of the Moabites,
and the Cameses of the ancient Italians who was venerated with Janus and
Cronus.* He was indeed Janus himself, whom I have already shewn to be
Buddha ; though the Etruscans divided this god into two persons, Janus and
Cameses, whom they made jointly their most ancient sovereigns, t he country
being called Camesene from the one, and the city being denominated Jam'
culum from the other.1 In a similar manner, Butos is the city of But or
Buddh : and it was supposed to have been the residence of Latona, one of
those eight primary deities, whose head was Pan or Buddha or Thoth.4
* Asiat. Res. vol. iii. p. 1S3, 184.
1 Macrob. Saturn, lib. i. c. 7. p. 151. Chemosh was the Moabitic god of love or genera
tion, whence Milton calls him the obscene dread of Moab's sons.
* Herod. Hist. lib. ii. c. 156.
409
Plutarch accordingly tells us, that Pan once dwelt near Chemmis, where
doubtless he was originally worshipped.
3. The ancient Cupid or Caimis being the same as Buddha, we shall find
him designated by the very name of that god, while Buddha in return is dis
tinguished by his special appellation.
Thus the Abbuto or father Buddha of the Japanese is in China called
Camasson, where he is venerated as the god that presides over navigation :
and thus the primeval Cupid was sometimes styled Pothos, from which the
Greeks formed a verb signifying to love or to desire, but which itself I take
to be, like Butos, a mere variation of Pot, Bot, or Buddha.1
It is funda
mentally the same word as Buthos, which the Greeks applied to the vast
aqueous abyss. This application they learned from their Pelasgic or Scythic
ancestors, who came from the northern region of India : for, among the
Hindoos as among the Egyptians, water was esteemed a form of the great
father.
Hence, in the west, Janus is said to be the same as Chaos ; while
Chaos is declared to be no other than Buthos.1 The Phenicians expressed it

Baut, and spoke of it as a female : but this is of little consequence ; for wa
ter was no less a form of the great mother than of the great father, and
Buddha or Ila was an hermaphrodite.'
4. The various genealogies of Cupid will all be found to lead to the same
conclusion,
that he is the god Buddha or Noah as worshipped by the
Buddhists.
We have already seen, that Aristophanes and the Orphic poet deduce his
birth from a wonderful ogg, which was driven about by the winds on the
surface of a watery Chaos ; while Hesiod, though he mentions not the egg,
makes his nativity synchronical with the emerging of the earth from the
bosom of the hoary deep. Similar are the doctrines, which were taught in
the Phenician school. According to Sanchoniatho, the principles of the
Universe were a dark air and a turbulent Chaos, from the mixture of
* Jarrige Hist, des Indes. liv. v. c. 51. Euseb. Praep. Evan. lib. i. c. 10.
deor. c. 25.
1 Ovid. Fast. lib. i. ver. 103. Epiph. adv. haer. vol. i. p. l64.
1 Euseb. Prsep. Evan. lib. i. c. 10.
Pag. Idol.
vox. ii.
Phurn. dc nat.
3 P
410
tY- which was born Pothos or Cupid : and afterwards he says, that Pothos and
Eros (for he groundlessly divides this ancient being into two persons) were
the sons of Cronus and Astarte.1 Here we have the agitated deluge, and,
in effect, the floating egg : for Astarte was the same as Maia or the Ark.
In classical mythology, Cupid is generally reckoned the son of Venos, who
was born from the sea. As such, he is a maritime deity, like Dagon : and
in that capacity he is depicted, sometimes riding upon the back of a fish,
sometimes driving over the waves a chariot drawn by two fishes, sometimes
gliding along the surface of the ocean in a cup or pitcher while he expands
his little sail to the wind, and sometimes floating on the sea in a large con
cave shell.* All these representations have one and the same meaning : and
the last seems to be explained by Elian, who informs us, that the elder Cu
pid was the sou of Lucina and the lover of Venus, and that the Sun being
once displeased at him threw him into the sea and gave him a shell for his
habitation.' Lucina however, or the goddess of parturition, was the very
same person as Venus or Mylitta or the Ark ; which was indifferently es
teemed the mother, or the wife, or the daughter, of the great father : and
the shell or the cup, which transports Cupid over the mighty deep, is cer
tainly the sacred navicular cup Argha, which is an avowed copy of the Ship
of the deluge. As a maritime god, Cupid sometimes appears receiving
Venus in his arms as she rises out of the sea : and, when in company with
his mother, he is always attended by the arkite dove.4 Different fathers
are assigned to him as well as different mothers ; but the same truth still
lurks at the bottom of each account. He was not only the son of Chaos
and Night, of Cronus and Astarte, of Maia, and of Lucina ; but likewise
of Mercury and Diana, of Mercury and Venus, of Mars and Venus, and
of Jupiter and Venus.5 His reputed parent Diana was doubtless the ma
ritime Diana, who was venerated as the queen of the waves, and who was
the same as Venus or Maia. By the ancient Italians she was called Jam :
' Euseb. Prasp. Evan. lib. i. c. 10.
* Montfauc. Ant. Expl. vol. i. p. Ill et infra.
* ^Llian. lib. xiv. c. 28. See Asiat. Res. vol. iii. p. 186, 1874 Pausan. 1 Eliar. p. 307.
* Cicer. de nat. dcor. lib. iii. c. 23. Lactan. Instit. lib. i. c. 17.

a'hd indeed the compound Diana is but equivalent to the divine Jana.
411
She
was therefore the corresponding female divinity to Janus : but Janus, as

we have seen, was Buddha. Such also is the character of Cronus, and
Mercury, and Mars : whence, agreeably to the system of mythologic ge
nealogy, Cupid himself was Mercury or Thoth or Buddha.
5. The death of the Hindoo Cama by the hand of Iswara, previous to
his being inclosed in the ark and set afloat on the ocean, was solemnly la
mented by his consort Reti : and one of the sweetest measures in Sanscrit
prosody bears the name of Rett's dirge.1
This is certainly the identical lamentation of the Egyptian women on
account of the supposed death of their Cupid, whom they called Maneros :
and it corresponds with the similar lamentations over Osiris, Adonis, Attrs, and Dionusus. The song, either the words or the air, was of old
equally used in Phenicia, Cyprus, and many other places : and Herodotus
is not a little perplexed to learn, how the Egyptians acquired this song;
so exactly did it resemble the dirge of Linus as used by the Greeks.
He
confesses however, that it was of the remotest antiquity among them : and
he says, that they themselves called it the song of Maneros, and that they
believed it to have been composed on account of the premature death of
Maneros who was the only son of their first king.* Maneros therefore was
the fabled offspring of Menes, or Phtha, or Helius, or Thoth; that is to
say, he was the same as each and every of these cognate gods. His death
was the allegorical death of Osiris or Noah : and his very name shews, that
he was Menes or Menu ; for Maneros is equivalent to Cupid the Menu,
Accordingly, like Noah, he was thought to have been the inventor of hus
bandry; and, agreeably to the character of Mercury and the Celtic Her
cules, he was esteemed the disciple of the Muses.5
6. As the primeval Cupid was the great father, he sometimes bore the
name of Pappas. Hence, like Vulcan and Pan, he was occasionally idea- ,
tified with the Universe, and was esteemed the most ancient of all beings :
1 Asiat. Res. vol. iii. p. 187.

'Jul. Poll. lib. iv. c. 7.
1 Herod. Hist. lib. ii. c. 79-
"AP'
412
iM)DK iv.
hence also he was reckoned the god of love and generation.1
His amour
with the beautiful Psyche has been variously wrought up by different authors,
ancient and modern, into an elegant mythological tale : but the whole of it
seems to have been founded upon the allegorical love of Noah and his
arkite consort, and the mystic regeneration from the womb of the great
mother. Psyche was represented with the wings of a butterfly : and, from
the remarkable physical changes which that insect undergoes, the Egyptians
made it a symbol of the death of Osiris, his inclosure within his luniform
coffin, and his restoration to life and liberty.
?. When the waters of the deluge had retired, God set his bow in the
heavens as a token that they should never return to cover the earth : hence
the rainbow naturally became a concomitant of the arkite god and goddess.
In the character of Iris the Greeks have faithfully preserved this sign, con
necting it both with Juno, who is the same as the navicular Yoni or Argha,
and with the oath of the hero-gods by the waters of Styx, which I have
shewn to be the waters of the flood.* But for the most part they misappre
hend its import ; transforming the rainbow into an offensive weapon, and
the arkite divinities into archers.
Thus they were wont to put bows into
the hands of Hercules, Apollo, Diana, and Cupid, furnishing them also
with a quiver of arrows. The Hindoos fell into the same error, giving bows
in a similar manner to Cama, Durga, and Bal-Rama. But, what was
really meant by the bow of Cupid, and thence analogically by the bows of
the other arkite deities, is decidedly shewn by the curious carvings in the
front of an ancient Mithratic grotto, of which Thevenot has given us a de
lineation. In the upper compartment appears a winged Cupid, not armed
with a bow and arrow, but seated upon the arch of a rainbow. On his
right hand is seen the mysterious conical pillar or phallus, surmounted by
the head of the Mithratic bull : on his left, a second phallus, and near it a
circular columniform altar blazing with fire which ascends towards the solar
orb.5
1 Phurn. de nat. deor. c. 25. Pappas is the Homeric Appa. Phurnutus whimsically fan
cies, that Cupid received the name from the sound produced by kissing.
* Hesiod. Theog. ver. 780.
3 Sec the plate in Thevenot par. ii, p. 145. or in Bryant's Anal. vol. ii. p. 426.
413
XXIII. From the conspicuous manner in which the Persian Cupid is c"**- vexhibited on the very front of a Mithratic grotto, where he occupies the
principal place and appears in the act of receiving the adoration of a sup
pliant votary, I think we may reasonably infer, that he is no other than the
god Mithras himself. In this case we must conclude, that Mithras is the
same as Buddha : and the conclusion will be confirmed by the circum
stance, already noticed, of the worship of Buddha having been once esta
blished in Persia. I take him to be the ancient Mahabad or great Buddha,
the primeval Aboudad who reappeared at the time of the deluge in the
character of Taschter, and the Cala or Time in whose days the sacred books
of the Behdins assert that an universal flood took place.1
1. The symbol of Mithras was a bull, or rather, as we may collect from
the Zend-Avesta, a man-bull : and the horns of the animal, like those of
the heifer Isis or Astarte, were thought to have a reference to the lunar
crescent, which was the astronomical type of the Ark.1 He was symbol
ized however by a serpent, no less than by a bull ; agreeably to the old
chaunt in the Mysteries which speaks of these two sacred animals as being
mutually parents of each other.5 Sometimes also he was represented by a.
lion, which was very frequently used as an hieroglyphic of the solar great
father : and sometimes, like the Egyptian Thoth or Buddha, he \va6 exhi
bited in close connection with the famous symbol of the globe, serpent, and
wings.4
2. His Mysteries appear to have been of the very same nature as those
of Isis, Ceres, and the Cabiri ; chiefly founded on a mixture of diluvian tra
ditions and astronomical reveries. .
They were celebrated in deep caverns or grottos, sometimes natural and
sometimes artificial ; the earliest of which is said by Porphyry to have been
consecrated to the god in the mountains of Persia. He tells us, that the
Mithratic grotto was a symbol of the World, and that it was dedicated to
1 Stat. Thebaid. lib. i. ver. 720. Schol. in loc.
3 Jul. Firm, de error, prof. rel. p. 52. Clem. Alex. Cohort, p. 1 1.
* Horapoll. HieroE. lib. i. sect. 71. Macrob. Saturn, lib. i. c. 21.
Mythol. vol, ii. p. 110.
ilontfauc. in Banicr.
414
THE ORIGIN Of PAGAN IDOtATftf.
Mithras as the great universal father who made the World.1 In this I be
lieve him to be accurate, provided his assertion be rightly understood. The
Ark, as I have frequently observed, was esteemed a Microcosm or epilomfe
of the World. Hence the same symbols and the same personifications are
common to them both.
Consequently the grotto represented at once the
Ark and the World : just as Ha the wife of Buddha is both the great
circle of the Universe and the diluvian ship Argha ; while the Argha itself,
though it sails on the waters of the flood, is yet considered as being that
larger ship the World, which was supposed to have once floated on the
bosom of the mighty chaotic deep.
This seems necessarily to follow from the fabled birth of Mithras. Por
phyry says, that the cave was consecrated to him, because it was a type of
the World which he created : yet he was also supposed to have been born
from a rock, that is to say, from a cavern hewn out of a rock.* Now, if
the greater world were alone intended by the Persic cavern, and if by Mi
thras we are properly to understand the divine Creator of all things ; how
could he himself be born out of that very cavern in the rock, which repre
sented the World as created by him ? It is a contradiction in terms to say,
that Mithras first created the World, and was afterwards himself produced
from it. But this contradiction will vanish, if by the cavern we mystically
understand the smaller World or the Ark. Of that World the diluvian
god was indeed the creator : yet was he himself, in the language of the
Mysteries, born out of it, as from the womb of a great universal mother.
The birth of Mithras in short from the rocky cavern is the very same as
the birth of Protogonus, of Eros, of Brahma, and of the Orphic Jupiter,
from the egg. The cavern and the egg each symbolized the World : but
the World, from which those kindred deities were born', was the Micro
cosm that once floated on the waters.
3. As Mithras is the same as Buddha or Menu, and consequently the
same as the transmigrating Noah, an opinion prevailed, that he triplicated
himself or multiplied his essence into three deities : whence he was called
* Porpli. <lc ant. nymph, p. 253, 254.

* Just. Mart. Dial, cum Tryph. p. '2i)6.
415
the triplasian Mithras. A similar notion prevailed respecting Oromasdes

or Hormusdt ; who was also thought, as Plutarch expresses it, to have thrice
increased himself. And the Persians had yet a third triad, composed of
Hormusdt, Mithras, and Ahriman.1
All these triads are but so many arbitrary multiplications of one circum
stance, which was believed to occur at the beginning of every new world :
and they are severally the same both as the Buddhic triad and the Brahmenical triad, and indeed as each and all of the various triads of the Gen
tiles. The great father's triple multiplication of himself means no more in
plain language, than that he begot three sons after his own likeness. Oro
masdes does indeed appear in the Zend-Avesta in the character of the Su
preme Being, and Ahriman in that of Satan : but this is only the necessary
consequence of elevating men to the rank of deity, while some recollection
of the primeval tempter was at the same time preserved. When the sup
posed transmigrating patriarch was profanely made to usurp the place of
the godhead, though he retained in pagan mythology the whole of his
real and original character, yet he was thence also inevitably compelled to
personate the Divinity and to claim his attributes.
XXIV. One of the most common titles of Buddha is Codom or Cadam or
Gautam, as the same radical letters are pronounced with a slightly varied
intonation : and, since Buddha is undoubtedly Hermes or Mercury or Taut,
we thence find, that that deity was sometimes called Cadmilus or CadamIlus.
Now Tzetzes tells us, that Cadmus and Cadmilus are the same title :
and he adds, that Cadmus was the name of Hermes among the Beotians,
whose capital city Thebes was feigned to have been built by the person that
bore it.1 Since Hermes then was certainly the same as Buddha, and since
Cadmus is declared to be the same as Hermes ; Cadmus must also be the
same as Buddha : and, since we know that Buddha is even yet denominated
Cadam or Codom ; there can be little doubt, that the name of the fabulous
hero was takea from this Buddhic title. It seems to have been written by
the Egyptians and Phenicians Cadmon or Cadam-On, which denotes Cadam
' Cudworth's Intell. Syst. b. i. c. 4. p. 288.
"T*etif. in Lycoph. vcr. 219.
416
n'
THE ORIGfN OF PAGAN IDOLATRY.
the Sun :' and from the title thus compounded his worshippers the Cadmonites of Palestine, who were probably a branch of the Scythian Palli or
Philistim or Shepherds, derived their appellation ; in the same manner as
the Sacas called themselves so from their god Buddha-Saca.
Cadmon ap
pears to have been likewise denominated Baal-IJennon : whence another

kindred tribe of his worshippers took the name of Hermonites. Hermon is
the Hermes of the Greeks, and the Hermaya of the Hindoos: but Her
mon, Hermes,
and Hermaya, are mere variations of one and the same
Buddhic title. From this appellation the Greeks formed their Harmonia ;
and made the person, who bore it, the wife of Cadmus or Hermon. As a
female, she was the same as Maya or Heri-Maya, the mother of Buddha :
for the Ark was indifferently esteemed the parent, the wife, and the daugh
ter, of the great father. Hence we find her celebrated, as the universal
mother and as the Luminary of the World or the lunar Crescent : hence
also she is spoken of as being one with the sea-nymph Nais, the Anais of
the old Armenian Sacae and the Neith of the Egyptians : and hence the
famous holy books of Hermes are likewise said to be the books of Harm
onia.1 These, like the Indian Vedas which the Brahmens assert to have
been carried into Egypt by Thoth or Hermes, were four in number : and it
may be added, that, as they are indifferently ascribed to Hermes and to
Harmonia, so letters themselves, the reputed invention of Hermes, are re
ported to have been brought by Cadmus into Greece either from Egypt or
Phenicia.5 Cadmon then or Baal-Hermon being the deity of the Ark,
mount Hermon was undoubtedly his high place; in other words, it was a
transcript of the Paradisiacal Ararat. There seem to have been two hills
of this name. One of them was a peak of Lebanon, the Phenician moun
tain of the Moon, where Venus and Adonis were worshipped, and which
' Steph. Byzant. dc urb. p. 415. The editor has indeed corrected Cadmon to Cadmus: but
he acknowledges, that it is contrary to the reading of every copy both printed and manu
script.
* Nonni Dionys. lib. xli. p. 1068, 1070. lib. xii. p. 328. Lactant. Instit. lib. i. c. 7. p. 4,0.
Schol. in Apoll. Argon, lib. ii. ver. 992.
3 Hyg. Fab. 277- Herod. Hist.' lib. v. c. 58. Plin. Nat. Hist. lib. vii. c. 56. Diod.
Bibl. lib. iii. p. 200.
417
abounded with the Mercurial columns denominated Baitylia : the other was
in the neighbourhood of Tabor, itself also (as the word imports) a Ta-Baris
or a holy place of the ship Baris.1
1. Bochart, like myself, supposes an immediate connection between the
names Cadmus and Harmonia, and the Cadmonites and Hermonites of Pa
lestine : but he seems to me to have erred in his hypothesis respecting the
mode of that connection. Instead of viewing Cadmus and Harmonia, as
the gods of the Cadmonites and Hermonites, and as having conferred their
own divine appellations on those neighbouring tribes ; he conceives them to
be two literal mortals, who fled into Greece when Palestine was invaded by
Joshua.
The one was by birth a Cadmonite; whence he was styled
Cadmus or Cadmon : the other was by birth a Hermonite ; whence she was
similarly denominated Harmonia. Tradition, accordingly, brings them out
of the land of Canaan : for Cadmus is represented, as being an emigrant
from Phenicia.*
2. The theory of Bochart would have been sufficiently plausible, if tra
dition had uniformly and exclusively described Cadmus and Harmonia as
Tyrians, who left their own country and settled in Greece : but the very
reverse of this, which is so necessary to the system of that eminent writer,
will prove to be the case.
Cadmus was indeed a Phenician, or rather a
Phenician god : but he was likewise venerated in Egypt ; and popular fable
brought him into Greece no less from that country than from Palestine.
Thus Diodorus tells us, that he was of Thebes in Egypt : Tzetzes gives the
same account of his origin : and Nonnus represents his father Agenor, who
is usually made a king of Phenicia, as residing in that city.' It is remark
able, that Conon blends the two accounts together. He says, that the
Phenicians once possessed the empire of Asia ; that they made Egyptian
Thebes their capital ; and that Cadmus, migrating thence into Europe, built
Beotian Thebes, and called it after the name of his native town.4
There
Well's Gcog. of O. Test. vol. i. p. 327, 328.

1 Bochart. Canaan, lib. i. c. 18, 19.
3 Diod. Bibl. lib. i. p. 20. Tzetz. in Lycoph. ver. 1206. Nonni Dion. lib. iv. p. 126.
* Conon. Narrat. \xxvii. p. 279- Eusebius and Syncellus similarly connect the two counPag. Idol.
vol. i.
3 G
41S
book it.
THE OUIGIX OF PAGAN IDOLATRY.
js much genuine history contained in this curious tradition, which connects

together Egypt and Phenicia in a manner not unlike that of the old mythologic narrative of Sanchoniatho. The Phenicians, the Anakim, the Philistim, the Palli, and the Egyptian Shepherd-kings, were all the same people.
They were of the line neither of Canaan nor of Mizraim, but descendants
of Gush. They were the founders of the first universal empire at Babel :
and, under the name of Scuths or Goths, they overran Palestine and Egypt,
and more than once acquired the empire of Asia.1
Their great god was
Cadam or Buddha : hence Cadmus is indifferently said to have been an

Egyptian and a Phenician. He was both, so far as his worship was esta
blished in either country by the adventurous Palli ; but no further : for,,
wherever the Scythians penetrated, there we find the veneration of Cad
mus.
According to the Hindoos, Buddha or Cadam travelled over the whole
world : and they give much the same account of Siva and Deo-Naush. The
Greeks and Egyptians tell similar tales of Osiris and Bacchus and Cronus.
All these relate, not to any actual travels of Noah, but to the diffusion of
idolatry in the infancy of the world ; when each colony travelled under the
protection of the great father, whose oracular image was borne before them
in his consecrated ark.
Now, as Cadmus was the same as Cadam, he is
also said to have been an eminent wanderer : and we find him in many dif
ferent countries, besides Phenicia, Greece, and Egypt. Thus we are told,
that in Samothrace he was initiated into the Cabiric Mysteries and was
married to Harmonia : yet he is also described as having espoused her at
the lake Tritonis in Africa.* He was likewise in Thrace : and he even be
came the king of the Illyrians, among whom he had a son called Ilh/riusJ
All this is nothing more than might have been expected : for Thrace, Sa
mothrace, and Illyricum, were equally settlements of the Scuths, Palli, or
Pelasgi; who were indeed the ancestors of a considerable part of the
trie*, bringing Phenix and Cadmus from Egyptian Thebes to Phenician Tyre. Euseb. Chron.
p. 27- Syncell. Cbronog. p. 152.
* This subject will be returned hereafter, book vi. c. 5.
* Diod. Bibl. lib. v. p. 329, 323. Nonn. Dionys. lib. xiii. p. 372.
' Apollod-Bibl. lib. iii. c> I. c. 5. 4. Strab. Geog. lib. xiv. p. 680.

Greeks.
419
Hence we fmd the Getre reckoned among the Thracians ; who
spread themselves far beyond the narrow limits of geographical Thrace, and
who were so numerous that Herodotus reckons them as nationally inferior
only to the Hindoos.1 Nor was this assertion thrown out at random. The
Getae are undoubtedly the Goths : and the Goths are no less undoubtedly
the Scuths, Scythians, or Chasas ; one of whose principal settlements was
in Cashgar and Bokhara.
The same god therefore, whom they called Ca
dam or Buddha or Saca, was equally worshipped by the Chasas of Phenicia, Egypt, Cashgar, Thrace, and Illyricum. By the Greeks Cadmus is
made only a sojourner in Thrace : but the Thracian nobility, who formed
the military caste and who thus subjected the lower ranks of people pro
bably of Japhetic origin, esteemed him their great father, worshipping him
principally, and adjuring him alone. This is what Herodotus says of the
Thracian god, whom he calls Mercury or Hermes : but the Gothic Hermes
was Wud or Woden ; and both Woden and the Grecian Hermes were
equally the same as Buddha or Hermaya or Cadam.*
As Cadmus was a
Phenician deity ; so, when Carthage was built, his name and worship were
carried to the new settlement. The city was called Cadmea ; and the peo
ple, Cadm&ans or Cadmonites.* There was likewise a Cadmea in Colchis
below the high country of Armenia, in which there was a notion that Cad
mus established himself : but the reason was this ; the Colchians were a
colony of the Indo-Scythte, and Cadam was their chief deity.* A town of
the same name occurs in Cilicia, and near it another called Sida : and we
fmd, that Phenix the brother of Cadmus was fabled to have come into that
country while in search of his sister Europa.5 Cadmea was so called from
Cadam, and Sida from the goddess Sida or Sita, who in the mythology of
Hindostan is the same as Ida or Ila or Parvati or Argha. She was vener
ated under a kindred appellation in Britain : for the circle of the Buddhic
temple of Stonehenge is called the circle of Sidee, while Sidee herself is de1
*
*
1
Herod. Hist. lib. v. c. 3.

Herod. Hi*t. lib. v. c. 7.
Eustath. in Dionys. Perieg. ver. 195. SR. 1 tal . lib. i. vcr. 6.
Mos. Choren. Hist. Armen. lib. i. c. 9, 10. Txew. in Lycoph. W. 174.
Euseb. Chron. p. 30. Eustath. in Dion. Perieg. ver. 874.
420
THE OKXGUN OF PAGAN IDOLATRY.
clared to be the great mother and the ship within which Hu was preserved
at the time of the deluge. In short, Cadmus or Buddha was venerated
from the extremity of Siam to the remote western isle of Ireland : for the
Codom of Pegu, the Gautam of Ceylon, the Cadam-On of Phenicia and
Egypt, the Cadmus and Cadmilus of Beotia and Samothrace, and the
Chadmel of the ancient Irish, were all one and the same character.1 I
might mention various other places, where Cadmus was thought to have
come in the course of his wanderings, such as Rhodes, Thera, Thasus, Eubea, Sparta, Attica, Lesbos, and Ionia : but I must not neglect to observe,
that, while some bring him from Egypt or Phenicia ; others, preserving ge
nuine tradition with greater accuracy, represent him as coming from Baby
lonia, the region whence also in their progress westward the Phenicians or
Palli migrated into Palestine.1 This was the seat of the first empire of the
Chasas or Cuthites under Nimrod, the centre whence the two primeval
superstitions branched off in every direction. Here the Morship of Cadam
or Buddha commenced : and, in each country where they afterwards settled,
the enterprizing Shepherds of the Scuthic stock were always peculiarly de
voted to it
3. Cadmus being the same divinity as Cadam or Buddha, and Buddha
being the husband of Ila or the mundane Ark, we shall not wonder to find
the whole history of Cadmus built upon the hieroglyphical worship of the
great mother.
Europa, the daughter of Agenor king of Tyre, was carried off into Crete
by Jupiter ; who assumed for that purpose the form of a bull, and who by
her became the father of Minos. Agenor dispatched his two sons, Cad
mus and Phenix, in search of her. Cadmus, having fruitlessly wandered
over the whole world, at length consulted the oracle of Apollo; and was
directed to settle in a country where he should find a heifer unbroken to the
yoke, and to build a city on the spot where that heifer should lead him.
The prophecy was accomplished in the region afterwards called Beotia;
and the city of Thebes was built, agreeably to the directions which he had
* Collect, de reb. Hib. vol. iii. p. 63<J.

* Mos. Choren. Hist. Arm. lib. i. c. 9. Herod. Hist. lib. i. c. 1. Just. Hist. lib. xviii. c, 3.
THE ORIGIN OF PAGAN' IDOLATRY.

received.
421
Afterwards, he and his consort migrated into Illyricum : and, at
length, they were both changed into serpents and transported by Jupiter
into the Elysian fields or the islands of the blessed.1
At this period of the discussion, the present fable cannot require much
elucidation.
Cadmus was generally thought to have denominated the coun
try Beotia from the animal which was his conductor, Bous or Bos or Bou
denoting an ox or a heifer : and, in a similar manner, he was supposed to
have called his new-built city Thebes from Theba, which in the Syriau dia
lect (we are told) signifies a heifer likewise.* But there was a more an
cient city of the same name in upper Egypt : and we find it asserted, that,
if Cadmu9 came from Phcnicia into Greece, he had previously come from
the Egyptian Thebes into Phenicia.' Hence it is evident, that the name of
the Beotian Thebes was borrowed from that of the Egyptian Thebes. Con
sequently we may be sure, that, with whatever idea the latter was imposed,
with the same also the former must have been imposed. Accordingly,
Tzetzes expressly informs us, that the Beotian Thebes and every thing
which respected it was a studied copy of the Egyptian Thebes.4 Now the
word Theba properly signifies an Ark : and it only acquired the secondary
meaning of a cow, because a cow was used as a symbol of the Ark. But,
on the sphere, the Ark was typified by the Moon. Hence the Moon, the
ship Theba, and the cow, were convertible : and hence the figure of the
lunar crescent, which was impressed on the sides of the bulls Apis and
Mneuis, was thought to have likewise adorned the flank of the heifer that
conducted Cadmus ; a clear proof of their theological connection with each
other.5 The city of Theba therefore, whether in Greece or in Egypt, is the
city of the Ark : and both the bull that carries off Europa, and the heifer
that leads Cadmus, involve symbolical allusions to the great father and to
the vessel within which he was inclosed.
' Ovid. Metam. lib. iii. lib. iv. ver. 566602. Apollod. BH>U lib. iii. c. 5. $4.
* Tzetz. in Lycoph. ver. 1206. Etym. Magn. vox. i;/3a.
3 Diod. Bibl. lib. i. p. 20. Euscb. Chron. p. 27. Syncell. Chronog. p. 152.
* Tzetz. in Lycoph. ver. 1206.
5 Pausan. Bceot. p. 559.
0HAp.
THE Oaf43 IV OF PAOAK IDOLATRY.

Agreeably to such a conclusion, Theba is sometimes said to have been
the wife of Ogyges, an ancient king both of the Egyptian and the Grecian
Thebes, who flourished at the time of the deluge.'
She was the same no
doubt as the heifer Isis, who is similarly described as the consort of the arkinclosed Osiris ; the same also as the universal mother Harmonia ; the
same likewise as the Tauric Europa.
This last personage is usually made
by the poets the daughter of the Tyrian Agenor ; and she was worshipped
at Hierapolis in Syria, as the sister of Cadmus : the priests however assured
Luciau, that she was the self-same character as Astarte and Rhea.*
But
Astarte was the great mother or floating receptacle of the hero-gods : and,
as the heifer Baalath, was clearly no other than the heifer Theba or Isis.
The transformation of Cadmus and Harmonia into serpents means only>
that these two tauric deities were occasionally worshipped under the figure
of those reptiles : and their ultimate abreption to the isles of the blessed
points them out as the deified tenants of the insular Paradisiacal Ararat.
It may not be improper to add, that the legend of llus founding Ilium is an
exact repetition of the legend of Cadmus founding Thebes.'
XXV. Harmonia was not only reckoned the wife of Cadmus : but she
was likewise thought to have been at once the daughter and the consort of
Mars, to whom she bore the fabulous race of the Amazons.4
The fact was
this : Mars or Ares was the same person as Cadmus or Buddha ; and Har
monia stands to him in the double relation of daughter and wife, precisely
as Ila does to Buddha or Menu. Hence we find, that one of the titles of
Mars was Camulus or Cadmilus : for Camulus, Camillus, Casmilus, and
Cadmilus, were all, as it is well known, the same name somewhat differently
pronounced ; and that name was a title of Mercury or Buddha, the same in
substance as the word Cadmus and the oriental Codom or Cadam.' Hence
also we find, that another of his titles was Theus or Theuth : for the Cushitea
of Arabia worshipped him under the name of Theus- Ares ; and shewed
evidently, that the god, whom they venerated, was Taut or Thoth or
1
*
*
5
Tzeta. in Lycoph. ver. 1206.

* Luc. de dea Syra.
Apollod. Bibl. lib. iii. c. 1 1. Tzetss. in Lycoph. ver. 29.
Apollon. Argon, lib. ii. ver. 989994. Pherecyd. apud Schol. in loc.
Grutcr. Imcrip. vol. i. p. hi. 12.
THE OHIGIK OF PAGAN IDOLA.TRY.
423
Theuth or Buddha, by representing him under the prevailing Hermetic figure

of a square black stone.* He was adored under the very same symbol by
the Babylonians : for we are told, that they were the first, who erected a
column or Mercurial pillar to Mars and worshipped it as the representative
of the god.* Their notion of him was, that he was an ancient king of
Assyria, the brother of Rhea or the great mother, and the son of Sames :
and they supposed him to have been called Thourras, before he received
the name of Ares.1
He was one of their first fabulous sovereigns : and the
titles, which occur in his genealogy, sufficiently point out his real character.
His father was the Sun, for such is the import of the word Sames : and his
original title Thourras shews him to be Buddha ; for Tor and Tara-Nath
were names of that deity, whence the Goths and Celts had their Thor and
Taraiiis.* This sun-born god in short was the same as Menu-Vaivaswata,
so called because he was esteemed the child of the Sun ; the same also as
the Egyptian Phtha ; the same in reality as Helius, for Ares was himself
astronomically no other than the solar orb.
1 . His connection with Mercury further appears, from the name which was
given to him, and from the w orship which was paid to him at Edessa in Syria.
We learn from the emperor Julian, that the inhabitants of that place
venerated a triad composed of the Sun, Monimus, and Aziz : and he adds,
on the authority of Jamblichus, that Monimus was Mercury, and Aziz
Mars.' This I believe to have been no other than the Buddhic triad;
Monimus and Aziz being mutually the same god, and each being one with
the Sun. Jamblichus seems to me to have been perfectly right in his
opinion : and that opinion, if examined, will tend directly to prove what is
here advanced. He says, that Monimus or Monim is Mercury or Buddha :
and he says truly ; for Monim is but a variation of the oriental name Menu
or Manu. Accordingly, Monim has been pronounced by more than one
1 Max.Tyr. Dissert, xxxviii. p. 374. Suid. Lex.
1 Chronic. Alex. p. 8fl.
3 Chronic. Pasch. p. 37* Thourras is the Thor-Asa or Asa-Thor of the ancient Goths. Astoreth or Asa-Torath
is the corresponding feminine deity ; for the Phenicians were a Gothic or Indo-Scytbic tribe.
' Julian. Orat. apud Bochart. Can. lib. i. c. 42. p. 66Q, 66S.

book iv.
writer to be the Maun or Muni of Thibet, the Mercury (as they express
themselves) of that country: but the Thibetian legislator and god is un
doubtedly Menu or Buddha.'
So likewise he ! determines Aziz to be
Mars: nor is he wrong in his opinion, though it will lead to the conclusion
that Mars is Mercury. Aziz is certainly the Hesus of the Celts, as Bochart
and Schedius have well remarked, though I greatly doubt the propriety of
their deriving the word from the Hebrew.1 The Celts received the name
Jlesus from the Scythians, not from a people who spoke the Hebrew lan
guage : and I think it clear, as I have already observed, that it is the Esa
of the Hindoos.
Now Esa is one of the names of Buddha: and Hesus was
the same god as Tcutates or Teutat-Esa, the Taut of Phenicia, the Thoth of
Egypt, and the Tat or Datta of the Indo-Scythae. Aziz or Mars therefore
is the war-god of the Gothic or Teutonic tribes ; whom they called JVud or
Woden, and whose character melts into that of Hercules, Mercury, and
Mars. He was the same as each of those deities ; and all those deities were
mutually the same as each other. Hence we find, that the classical writers
sometimes call the northern war-god Hercules, sometimes Mars, and some
times Mercury : and we likewise find, that in their own mythology these
three divinities were all reputed one, however the poets might have divided
them.
Thus Macrobius informs us, that the Roman pontifices, who re
ceived the body of their theology from the old Etruscans, pronounced Mars
to be the same as Hercules : and he highly praises Virgil for the antiquarian
knowledge which he displays in assigning the Salii to the latter god though
they are usually given to the former. He adds, that Varro proved this
point by many arguments : and he further remarks, in corroboration of the
matter, that the planet Mars was called by the Chaldeans the planet
Hercules.1
Thus also he tells us, that Mars and Mercury were but one
Bayer. Osrhoen. p. 8.
Georg. de Alph. Tibet, p. 507, 508. apud Vallanc.
Vind. in
Collect, de reb. Hib. vol. iv. p. 507, 508.

* Boch. Can. lib. i. c. 42. p. 662. Sched. in Lactant. Ins. lib. i. c. 21. p. 113. They
suppose Aziz to be Tliy.
3 Macrob. Saturn, lib. iii. c. 12. They probably called it Bali or Pah, which was a name
of Wud or Buddha.
425-
god, which god was the Sun: and thus, as we have recently seen, Mars
bears the Mercurial titles of Camulus and Theuth.1
2. Nor is the identity of Mars with the war-god of the Scythians, whom
we know to have been Woden, purely fanciful and imaginary, amounting
to no more than this ; that the war-god of one pagan nation may always in
some sort be deemed the same as the war-god of another : there is sufficient
of an arbitrary nature to prove, that Mars and Woden are truly and pro
perly one primeval character ; and that their worship among the Romans,
the Greeks, and the Goths, must have originated from a common source.
We learn from Herodotus, that the Scythians or Goths venerated Marsr
that is to say, Woden, under the symbol of a sword ; which they placed on
the top of a rude pyramid constructed with faggots, and to which they
sacrificed not only sheep and horses but likewise every hundredth captive.*
The Thracians, who were of the Scythic race, or who at least were under
the government of Scythic chieftains, used the same hieroglyphic to represent
their god of war, who was doubtless no other than Wud or Woden : for
Ammianus Marcellinus tells us, that they worshipped a naked sword fixed
upright in the ground, considering it and Mars as the guardian of the coun
tries through which they roved.1Now the Romans, whose ancestors (I have little doubt) were of Scythic
origin, adored their god Mars precisely in the same manner : for we are
informed by Varro, Plutarch, and Arnobius, that he was worshipped under
the form of a spear ; and Arnobius and Clemens very naturally mention this
mode of worship in the very same sentence, in which they speak of the
Scythian veneration of a sword.4
A similar superstition prevailed at Cheronea in Beotia, a country (as we
-have already seen) strongly addicted to the worship of Cadam or Buddha :.
for Pausanias tells us, that divine honours were there paid to a spear, which
was thought to have been the sceptre of Agamemnon.1 By Agamemnon
1
3
*
3
Macrob. Saturn, lib. i. c. 19.

1 Herod. Hist. lib. iv. c. 62.
Amm. Marcell. lib. xxxi. c. 2.
Varr. apud Clem. Alex. Cohort, p. 25, 30. Plut. in vit. Rom. Arnob. adv. gent. lib. vi..
Paus. Boeot. p. 606, 607.
Pag. Idol.
vol. 11.
3H
wiAp.v.
426
book iv.
they meant their principal deity: for we learn from Lycophron and Tzetzes,
that he was the Jupiter of the Spartans, though fabled to have been at the
siege of Troy.1
The sword- worship is mentioned by Justin as being both very ancient
and very general : and such, no doubt, was the case ; for the Scythians, at
different periods, from the building of Babel to the subversion of the Roman
empire, have penetrated into almost every quarter of the globe. He says,
that from the very origin of things (now the Scythians were the founders of
the first universal monarchy after the deluge) the ancients worshipped spears
as the representations of the immortal gods ; and he attributes to this super
stition the practice of giving lances to the statues of the deities.*
It is curious to observe, how the Gothic war-god and his sword may be
traced not only to the settlements of the Chasas on the northern frontier of
Hindostan, but even to the island of Ceylon ; and that too in close connec
tion with the worship of Buddha or Somono-Codom. We are informed in
the Brahmanda-Purana, that Shadanasa or Carticeya, the Indian Mars with
six faces, was born in the mountains to the south and south-west of Meru ;
that is to say, in the high tract of land, which has ever formed and which
still forms the principal settlement of the Chasas. Here he took the re
solution of going to the mountains of Crauncha, which coincide geographi
cally with Germany and part of Poland, in order that he might recreate
himself after his fatigues in the war of the gods with the giants. Having
arrived in this remote region of the west, he threw away his sword in the
skirts of Crauncha: and this weapon is that, which the conqueror Attila
asserted, that he had found under a clod of earth, and which after his death
was placed in his tomb.5 Now the sword, which Attila pretended to have
found, was the well-known symbol of the Scythian Mars : and the artful
prince, aware of the vast influence of superstition, interpreted it accord1 Lyc. Cassan. ver. 1123, 1124. Tzetz. in loc. et in ver. I3(>9. He was the same, I
believe, as the celebrated Memnon, who was likewise brought to Troy; but who, us we shall
presently see, was no other than the oriental Bud'lha : for the name Agamemnon I strongly
suspect to be a corruption of Saca-Memnon ; and Saca was Buddha or Woden.
1 Just. Hist. lib. xliii. c. 3.
* Asiat. Res. toI. viii. p. 371, 372-
427
ingly ; and, as the rightful possessor of this representation of the national

god, asserted his divine and indefeasible claim to the dominion of the earth.1
The sword then of the Indian Carticeya is the sword of the Scythian Mars :
and the war-god, who travels far into the west from the land of the IndoScythse, must undoubtedly be that same war-god, who was worshipped in
the west by the Scythian subjugators of Europe and subverters of the
Roman empire. In Ceylon he is called Kandekoomareyo, or ScandCoomaura according to the Sanscrit mode of writing the name: for this
deity is clearly the same as the Carticeya of the Chasas, both because he is
denominated Scanda which is a title of Carticeya, and because he is repre
sented precisely in the same manner, namely, as having six heads and as
riding on a peacock.
He is distinguished indeed from Buddha, agreeably to
the prevailing humour of dividing the same god into different persons : yet,
in the mythology of Ceylon, he is immediately connected with him ; for he
is said to have obtained from him very extraordinary powers which led to
his subsequent adoration.* The Indian Carticeya then is certainly the
sword-god of the Scythians, and the spear-Mars venerated by the Romans.
1 See Gibbon's Hist, of the decline and fall. vol. vi. p. 43.
* Asiat. Res. vol. vii. p. 52, 53. vol. i. p. 252. The name of Carticeya seems to be one of
those compound titles so common among the Hindoos: but, when it is resolved, I am much,
mistaken if wc do not find in it the rudiments of the war-god's appellation both among the
Romans, the Greeks, and the Egyptians. Nor in fact is this any thing more than might be
expected : for the Scythian Shepherds once conquered Egypt ; and, under the name of Palli
or Pelasgi, colonized Greece and Italy. The wor-god then, whose symbol was a sword, was
called by the Romans Mars, by the Greeks Ares, and by the Egyptians Artes. Velt. Vak
Antioch. Antholog. vi. apud Selden. He appears also to have been denominated Ares by the
Cuthites of Babylonia: for we are told, that he was called by them Thourras previous to his
receiving the appellation of Ares. Chron. Pasch. p. 37. lie is likewise pretty evidently the
Hcres or Ares of the Canaanites: and, from the circumstance of his being worshipped in the
Sun, the word Heres came to denote that luminary; though the primitive idea i3, I suspect*
altogether different. Mars, Ares, and Artes, appear to me to be only variations of one and
the same title, properly expressed Art as tlie word occurs in the oblique cases of Mars.
Artes I take to be Art-Esa, and Mars to be M'Ares or the great Ares. But this same title
Art occurs in Carticeya, which is probably no other than the Egyptian Artes with be pre
fixed ; Carticeya being C Art-Esa or the illustrious Art-Esa^&nd Artes more simply Art-Esa
as I have remarked above. As for the word Art,, it signified among the old Scythians a
428
THE OltlGIN OF PAGAN IDOLATRY.
The sword or spear being thus the symbol of the war-god, we shall find,
that the name of the deity was applied to the weapon both among the
Romans and the Goths : and the appellations, which they used, will serve
additionally to establish the point contended for, that Mars was Buddha.
Plutarch tells us, that the Romans called the sacred spear Mars : and he
adds, that Quirinus was a title of that god afterwards applied to the deified
Romulus, that the word was derived from Quiris, and that Quiris among the
old Sabines denoted the head or dagger of a spear.1 Ovid gives mueh the
same account, writing the word Quiris, as a Greek would do, Curis.1 Curis
therefore, or (with a slight variation) Quirinus or Curenus, was at once the
name of the god and of the spear. But Quirinus was not only a title of
Mars and Romnlus, it was likewise one of the many designations of Janus.
That god, as we learn from Macrobius, was called, as being the god of war,
Quirinus from Curis the old Sabine name of a spear.'
Thus it appears,
that Mars is the same as Janus, each bearing the name of Quirinus, and
each being reputed the god of battles : but Janus, as we have already seen,
is the Jain or Buddha of the east
From the god Curis the Romans were called Quirites, which is the same
word as Curetes. These were the Cabiri under a different name : and that
name they seem to have borrowed from the sword-god Curis ; for they are
represented as dancing with drawn swords in their hands, like the Salii
whom the Roman pontifices associated with Mars or Hercules. They are
usually placed in Crete, because the Cabiri were there worshipped under
that denomination : and from the same god Curis both the island and its
fabled original sovereign Cres or Cures borrowed their names. This Cres I
believe to have been the same as Minos and Minotaur, Cres being the title
of Minos or Menu or Buddha in his quality of the sword-god,
ship : the import therefore of the war-god's name will be the illustrious ship-deity Eta. This
will exactly accord with his solar character : for the ancients represented the Sun sailing in a
ship, allusively no doubt to him who was worshipped in the Sun. I suspect, that the Cuthite
god Tartak, worshipped with Adrammelech, whose form is said by the Rabbins to have bee
a peacock, was no other than the Carticeya of the Indo-Scythse.
,
* Plut. in vit. Rom.
1 Ovid. Fast. lib. ii. ver. 4754771 Macrob. Saturn, lib. i.e.*). p. 15J).
THE ORIGIN OF PAGiAN IDOLATRY.
429
We shall be brought to just the same conclusion, if we turn to the Goths.

As the old Saxons or Sacas worshipped their war-god under the symbol of a
sword ; so the name, by which in their language they expressed a dagger,
was Saxa or Seaxa.1 But this is the precise appellation of their great god
and reputed father: for Buddha is called Saca or Saxa ; and, as he was
their war-god and as his symbol was a sword, they at once applied his name
to a dagger and took from it their own national title.
%
The ancient Scythians thus deifying their swords, it was not unnatural for
them to ascribe many wonderful properties to those sacred weapons. Their
heroes were wont to stamp them with mysterious characters : and each
designated his own by some formidable proper name, which he thought likely
to inspire his enemies with terror.1
Hence, when mythology melted into
romance, originated the inchanted and almost animated swords of the

Gothic cavaliers : such, for instance, as the Caliburn of king Arthur ; and
the Durindana, the Fusberta, and the marvellous golden lance, which make
so conspicuous a figure in the divine poem of Ariosto. Hence also, unless
I greatly mistake, sprang the warlike superstition, which prompted the maid
of Orleans to refuse all vulgar swords, and to demand a mysterious holy
weapon which would be found in a tomb behind the high altar of the church
of St. Catharine de Fierbois ; a circumstance strongly resembling the dis
covery of the sword of Mars by Attila.' So again : the sword being the
symbolical war-god of the Scythians, they were led from the earliest times to
swear by it as by a deity.4 Hence Shakespeare, with singular propriety, re
presents his prince Hamlet as requiring his companions to take an oath of
secrecy upon his sword.'
The custom was preserved, when the weapon had
ceased to be worshipped by the Christianized warriors of the north.6

1 At the war-cry of Nemed eure Saxes or Take your daggers, our perfidious forefathers
under Hengist suddenly drew their swords, and assassinated at least three hundred of the
unsuspecting British nobility at Stonehenge. See Turner's Hist, of the Anglo-Saxons, vol. i.
p. l6t, 162. and Davies's Mythol. p. 308.
* Mallet's North. Ant. vol. i. p. 239.
3 Gifford's Hist, of France, vol. ii. p. 548.
* Mallet's North. Ant. vol. i. p. 217.
1 Hamlet Act i. scene ult.
6 I am not without suspicion, that the old chivalric oath before the ladies and the peacock,
by which the knights bound themselves to attempt some haiardous adventure, has originated
from the peacock of the war-god Carticeya.
cHAp. v.
430
3. Mars, like Woden and Hercules, being the diluvian patriarch viewed
in the character of the lord of battles, we find him always with strict mytho
logical propriety represented as the paramour of Venus ; the goddess, who
was born from the sea, and who was esteemed the maritime receptacle of all
the hero-gods : whence, in the old rites of the Romans, they were wor
shipped conjointly, he as the great father, and she as the great mother; and
the idea was so familiar, that his name was frequently expressed in composi
tion Marspiter or father Mars to denote his paternity.1
As an arkite deity, he was engaged in the war of the gods with Typhon or
the deluge : and, on that occasion, he is said, like Venus, to have assumed
the shape of a fish.* This points him out to be the same as the fish-god
Dagon, as Vishnou in the Matsya Avatar, and as Buddha in his character
of the sovereign prince in the belly of the fish. Nor is this resemblance
purely accidental or imaginary : the period, when he thus metamorphosed
himself, sufficiently explains the import of the fable ; it was the age of Typhon
or the unrestrained ocean, who compelled Osiris to enter into an ark, and
who for a time put to flight the whole body of the hero-gods.
The war of the giants alludes to the same event as the war of Typhon : and
here we have the escape of Mars described in a somewhat more literal fornm
Those allegorical children of Neptune or the sea, whose growth increased so
rapidly that they soon overtopped the- highest mountains, are said to have
forced Mars to enter into a tub.1 This is manifestly nothing more than a
repetition of the fable of Osiris
What the classical mythologists have con
verted into a tub, was the round dish or goblet which the Hindoos consider
1 Macrob. Saturn, lib. i. c. 12. p. 170. c. 19. p. 203. The names of many other of the
gods were similarly compounded, and, I believe, for the same reason : the character of each,
when analyzed, shews him to be the great father. The title of Jupiter or JovUpiler is
familiar to every one: but Lucilius will teach us, that he was by no means the only god who
bore the appellation offather.
Ut nemo sit nostrum, quin pater optimus divum.
Ut Neptunus pater, Liber, Sat urn us pater, Mars,
Janus, Quiiinus pater, nomen dicatur ad unum.
Lucil. apud Lactan. Instit. lib. iv. c. 3. p. 353.
* Anton. Liber. Mctam. c. 28.
1 Hyg. Poet. Astron. lib. ii. c. 40. p. 415. Hyg. Fab. 28. .
431
as a copy of the ship Argha. It was the same as the cup of Hercules and
Helius, in which they were thought to have sailed in safety over the surface
of the ocean : in other words, it was the Ark, which preserved the great
father from the fury of those M aters, the mighty children of the sea, that in
the short space of forty days prevailed above the summits of the loftiest hills.
That the circular tub of Mai s was really a cup, is evident from the place
which it occupies on the sphere : for we are told, that some supposed it to
be the goblet, which appears near the Centaur and the ship Argo.1 This
opinion seems to me very probable : for, since the sacrificial cup is profes
sedly a copy of the Argha, it is reasonable to believe, that the mythological
astronomers should have placed the one in the immediate vicinity of the
other.
XXVI. There is a remarkable peculiarity in the fabled birth of Mars,
which must by no means be omitted, as it forms a link in a mythological
chain, which binds together Italy, China, Hindostan, Greece, Egypt, and
the various countries that profess the religion of Buddha.
] . Mars is sometimes said to have been the son of Juno by Jupiter ; but
he was likewise thought to have been born of the goddess alone without the
instrumentality of a father. Ovid informs us, that Juno, indignant at
Jupiter's production of Minerva without a mother, went to complain of her
husband to the Ocean. On her way she met with Flora, who attempted to
comfort her : but Juno declared, that nothing could give her consolation ex
cept a complete conjugal retort; as Jupiter had produced a daughter without
a mother, she would compass heaven and earth to retaliate by producing a
son without a father. Flora, pitying the whimsical distress of the exasperated
goddess, undertook to gratify her wishes, provided she would swear by the
waters of Styx faithfiully to keep her secret from Jupiter. Juno complied :
and Flora forthwith produced a flower of marvellous potency. He who gave
me this, said she, told we to touch with it a barren heifer, and it assuredly
should become a mother : I obeyed ;
and, lo, the heifer became a mother.
The experiment was repeated upon Juno, and with equal success. She left
Flora in a state of pregnancy ; journeyed into Thrace ; and in due time,
1 Hyg. Poet. Astron. lib. ii. C. iO. p. 4U, 115.
432
'
THE ORIGIN OF PAGAN IDOLATBY,
among the warlike Scythians, became the exulting mother of the god
Mars.'
This curious, though somewhat ludicrous, fable relates to the allegorical
birth of Noah from the Ark or great mother, a birth obviously effected
without the intervention of a father : for Juno is the same as Yoni or Isi ;
and Isi took the form of the slu'p'Argha at the time of the deluge. Nor is
the heifer introduced into it accidentally: as that animal symbolized the
Ark, its supposed parturition by the touch of the flower is but the story of
Juno repeated in hieroglyphics. Nor yet are we told without reason, that
the goddess journeyed into Thrace i this circumstance shews, whence the
fable originated ; it was a Scythian or Gothic story, adorned by the pen of
a classical writer, but truly relating to the Cuthic god Buddha.
*2. Accordingly, in almost every region where Buddha is worshipped, we
shall meet with a tale more or less resembling that of the nativity of Mars
without a father. It was long since observed by Ratramnus, that the Brahmens of the sect of Buddha maintained their god to have been born through
the side of a virgin.1 This virgin, like the sole parent of Mars, was the
Ark : and the birth of Buddha through her side was the birth of Noah,
through the door, which was fashioned in the side of that vessel.'
The
1 Ovid. Fast. lib., v. ver. 231258..

1 Ratramn. de nat. Christ, c. 3. He calls the deity by mistake Bubda; but it is indis
putable, that he meant Buddha.
* It is easy to see, that this fable in particular and other points in the legend of Buddha
produced that monstrous heresy, which the Manicheans spread over the whole east.
Christ was pronounced to be an incarnation of Buddha, and Christianity was strangely
ingrafted upon Paganism. Manes himself claimed to be an appearance of the Paraclete ;
and gave himself out to be an incarnation of the god Buddha, whose titles he assumed. The
name Manes, by which he is generally known at least in the west, is the same appellation as
Menu, Manes, or Menu; which is a title of the ark-god Buddha. Bp. Pearson rightly
pronounces it to be no proper name, but rather a title assumed by the heresiarch : he is how
ever, I conceive, totally mistaken in deriving it from. the Hebrew and in supposing it to denote
a heretic- This is evident from the appellation assumed by his predecessor Terebinthus, who
called himself Buddas. Terebinthus is said to have had a master denominated Scythianus, who
was the first author of the heresy. Bp. Pearson on the Creed. Art. I. note c. vol. ii. p. 76.
Oxnn. This circumstance is extremely curious. The heresy itself consisted of an ingraftation
of Christianity upon a Scythian superstition ; for the Chusas were by the Greeks called Scy

same notion still prevails in the east.
433
Buddha and Mahiman are sometimes
indeed indiscriminately said to have stood to each other in the relation of

father and son ; a species of genealogical confusion, which I have frequently
observed and accounted for : but the common idea is, that Buddha had no
father ; and, what evidently shews whence the preceding fable of Mars ori
ginated, his birth is similarly connected with a flower.1 According to the
thians : hence the instructor of Terebinthus was thought to have been one Scythianus, that is
tosay, a Chusa or Scuth. Buddas-Terebinthus, closely copying the doctrines of his Scythian
instructor, pretended to be an incarnation of Buddha, born like him of a virgin, and educated
by angels in a mountain. Nor did the matter stop here: the disciples of Manes, and those
Christians whom he had perverted, strongly insisted, not only that their master also was
Buddha regenerated ; but that he himself was afterwards born again, in the same manner with
the Lamas of Thibet, in the person of his successor Buddas-Addas or Adda-Mcnes. In imita
tion of Christ, Manes had twelve disciples ; and, being esteemed an incarnation of Buddha,
he thence in India was called Salivahana, which is one of the titles of that god. Of these
twelve he gave the precedence to three : and, by way of copying the Buddhic triad, he called
the first Buddha or Addas, the second Hennas or Hcrmias, and the third Thomas or rather
Thaimaz. For Mr. Wilford rightly pronounces them to be a transcript of the three sons of
Salivahana.; Bhat or Baddas, Maya or Heri-Maya, and Thaitiiaz or Thamaz. The attempt
to identify Christ with Buddha was carried still further. Tashta or Twashta, who was though
to have journeyed into the west, who is represented as being the parent of Manu from whom*
were born three sons, and who is undoubtedly the Teutat of the Celts and the Tuisto of the
Germans (for the German Tuisto is said to have been the father of Mannus who had three
sons), was esteemed the great artist and fabricator of the world, because Noah was the builder
of the Ark ; in which part of his character he coincides wi th the Phtha or Vulcan of Egypt.
This artizan Twashta the mischievous ingenuity of the Buddhists of the Manichean school
converted into the carpenter Joseph, the husband of the virgin Mary : and, blending the an
cient worship of the serpent with Christianity, they asserted, that Christ, the reputed son of
the carpenter, was, like Salivahana or Saca, an incarnation of the great serpent. His mother
couceived at the age of a year and a half, the sacred serpent gently gliding over her while she
was asleep in her cradle. They .have various other legends, which seem evidently to have
been borrowed from the crude fables contained in the apocryphal gospels. If the reader wish
to pursue the matter any further, I beg to refer him to Mr. Wilford's Dissertations on the
subject in Asiat. Res. vol. :x. p. 213 221. and vol. x. p. 27 et infra.
1 The Prester John of the middle ages seems to me to have been clearly no other than the
Dalai Lama of Thibet. He was frequently supposed to reside in Ethiopia near the mountain
of the Moon: but there was an Ethiopia or Cusha-dwip in Asia as well as in Africa; and
every hill, where the Ark was feigned to have landed, was esteemed a lunar mountain. Such
Pag, Idol.
vol. ii.
3 1
c"'w', v"
434
,v. Hindoo account, which has been already given at large, Buddha left the
region of souls in the month of Magh, and entered into the womb of MahaMaya. When the time of his nativity approached, his mother was walking
in a garden and was employed in gathering flowers. Suddenly the pains of
labour came upon her : but the trees, spontaneously declining their branches)
concealed her venerated person while she brought Buddha into the world.'
5. A similar legend occurs in China. Fo-Hi, whom I have identified
with Buddha, is, like him, said to have been born without a father. As his
mother was walking on the bank of a lake, that constant symbol of the de
luge, she was suddenly encompassed by a rainbow : and the result was, that
she conceived and brought forth Fo-Hi.* This tale, as given by Martini,
does not mention the flower : but the deficiency is supplied by de Premare.
That father adds to the narrative of Martini, that the mother of Fo-Hi was
surnamed The fimoer-loving : and it is worthy of observation, that, in the
mythological system of the Hindoos, Buddha is sometimes feigned to have
been born from the Moon and the nymph Rohini, one of whose titles is
Cwnudanayaca of She that delights in the water-fiower}
4. Just the same notion was entertained by the Mexicans respecting the
birth of their great god Mexitli. While his mother was walking in the court
of the temple, she suddenly beheld a plume descend from heaven bright with
the various hues of the rainbow. Receiving it as it floated down, she placed
it in her bosom as an ornament for the altar of her god : but, when she sought
it there, it was no where to be found. She herself however became pregnant :.
and the fruit of her womb was Mexitli ; who, as we have seen above, was
accordingly is the character of Meru, which geographically coincides with the dominions o
the Lama. The striking resemblance between the ceremonial of the Buddhic religion and that
of the Romish church has often been noticed, so that travellers of the dark ages would easily
mistake the Lama for a Christian priest or pope. 1 am the more confirmed in this opinion,
both by the ingraftation of Christianity upon Buddhism, and by the very name which was
applied to this celebrated personage : his appellation John seems to be the Buddhic title Jain,
which approximates so nearly to the French Jean as to be in fact the same word. Just as
there were two Ethiopian so a notion prevailed, that there was a Prestcr John both in Asiaand in Africa, See Purch. Pilgr. p. 400, 403, 428, 410, 668, 670.
* Martin. Hist. Sin. lib. i. p. 81.
* Asiat. Res. vol. it. p> ZJS, 376.
THE ORIOTK OF PAGAN IDOLATRY.
43.5
parried by his priests io an ark from place to place, just in the same manner
as the Ammon or Osiris of Egypt.' Doubtless the ancestors of the Mexi
cans brought with them out of eastern Asia this remarkable worship of a
virgin-born ark-god : and it is curious to observe, how very slightly they
have altered the fable, as it exists in the mythologies of Greece, China, and
Hindostan, For an impregnating flower they have merely substituted a plume
of feathers steeped in all the colours of the rainbow,
5. The nativity of Vulcan or Phtha, whom I have shewn to be the same
as Buddha and consequently the same as Mars, affords another example of
the widely-extended tenet now under consideration.
The Greeks made him,
like Mars, the son of Juno, and believed him to have been born from that
goddess without a father ; the Egyptians supposed him to have sprung from
an egg, which proceeded out of the mouth of the primeval god Cneph.*
These two accounts are substantially the same ; and the one may serve to
explain the other : for the egg was a symbol of the Ark ; and Juno or Yoni
assumed the form of the ship Argha at the time of the deluge. It is worthy
of observation, that Juno is equally 6aid to have produced Mars and Vulcan
without a father, because she was indignant that Jupiter should have produced
Minerva without a mother.'
Such a coincidence tends additionally to prove
the identity of those two divinities.

6. We find a similar speculation prevalent with regard to the birth of Per
seus : and the reason of its prevalence is, that Perseus was the same character
as Mars and Buddha, He is commonly said to be the son of Jupiter by
Danae the daughter of Acrisius :
but Justin Martyr tells us, that he was
likewise feigned to have been born of a virgin and to have had no father.*
7. Such an universal opinion respecting the mysterious birth of the chief
hero-god will serve to explain the singular appeal made by the conqueror
Zingis to the superstition of his countrymen. The Scythian worship of
Buddha prevailed among most of the Tatar tribes, and has penetrated to
' Claviger. Torquemad. lib. vi. c. I. See Southey'* Madoc.vol, ii. p. 39, 40, 199.
* Apollod. Bibl. lib. i, c. 3. f 5. Hyg. Praf. in Fab. p. 9. Porph. apud Euseb. Prtep.'
Evau. lib. iii. c. 11.
* Hejiod. Theog. ver.9792?.
4 Just. Dial, cum Tryph. p. 39f.
C,,A*- Ti
436
Hook iv. the utmost recesses of Siberia.1
Aware of this circumstance, Zingis, to in
sure stability to his empire, erected it on the basis of popular belief. He

gave out, that he was born of a virgin : in other words, he pretended to be
an Avatar of Buddha. His followers, to whom the successive hirths of the
god in the persons of the various Asiatic Lamas were perfectly familiar,
readily acknowledged that miraculous conception of his mother, which raised
him above the level of human nature : and the naked, prophet, who in the
name of the deity invested him with the empire of the world, that empire
which every nation ascribed to the great father as an universal sovereign,
pointed the valour of the Moguls with irresistible enthusiasm.1
XXVII. Though the Greeks considered the virgin-born Perseus only as
a hero, and though they transferred his history to Argos ; he was really a
most ancient god both of Egypt and Babylonia. There was a temple dedi
cated to him at Chemmis : and, in the time of Herodotus, the inhabitants
affirmed that he often visibly appeared among them. They sometimes also
pretended to find one of his sandals, and represented it as being of the gigan
tic length of two cubits.' It is not difficult to account for these notions :
the fable of the vast sandal originated from the belief, that, into whatsoever
country Buddha directed his travels, there he left an impression of his sacred
foot, which far exceeded in size that of a mere mortal ; and his frequent ap
pearance among the inhabitants of Chemmis was, I believe, a literal matter
of fact, being indeed no other than the similar appearance of Buddha in the
person of the Dalai Lama.
The Egyptians further asserted, that he was a
1 If we may be allowed to draw a conjecture from identity of names, it seems also to have
been established among the Laplanders. The similarity of their language and accent to those of
the Hungarians is such, as to have led a native of Lapland and a native of Hungary, both men of
letters, to adopt the same opinion, that the Laplanders were originally a tribe of Huns. Now
the Laplanders call themselves Samen-Almatjah : and, from whatever source they might
borrow their national appellation, Sa?nen is undoubtedly a title of Buddha. This seems at
least to be certain, that they migrated at some period from Asia ; and we know, that Buddhism
has overspread almost all the worth of that vast continent. Sec Coxe's Travels, vol. iv. p. 58
ct infra. I think it likely, that the Siberian Samocds also took their name from the god
Saman.
1 Gibbon's Hist, of the Decline, vol. vi. p. 42.
3 Herod. Hist. lib. ii. c. 91,
487
native of their country ; which is true exactly in the same sense, that Cadmus CHkp- vand Osiris were Egyptians.1 He was their chief deity : but he was not more
their deity, than he was the god of every nation where Buddha was supposed
to have travelled and where in consequence he was worshipped.
1. Herodotus accordingly tells us, that Perseus was as well known to the
Persians as to the Greeks and Egyptians : for the Persians contended that
he was by birth an Assyrian or Babylonian, just as the Greeks and Egyptians
respectively claimed him as their countryman.* We find him also among
the Hyperboreans assisting at a sacrifice of asses to Apollo, and afterwards
in the same country slaying the Gorgon.'
This is precisely what we might
have expected : for Buddha was the great god of the Scythians ; hence Per
seus is naturally transported into the country of those blessed men, as Pindar
calls the widely-spreading family among the different brandies of which the
worship of Buddha especially prevailed. We likewise find him at Tarsus in
Cilicia ; of which city, according to Solinus and Antipater, he was the
founder : but Eustathius makes it a colony of those Argives, who were sent
in search of Io the daughter of Inachus.4 To this city came Cilix, the
brother of Cadmus, when in quest of his sister Europa.5 These various
legends amount to the same thing : for Perseus and Cadmus and Inachus
were all one person, just as Io and Danae and Europa were equally the
great mother; hence there was a very vivid tradition of the deluge at Tarsus.6
He was also in both the Ethiopias, eastern and western : and, in the former
of these regions, he was thought to have slain the cetus and to have delivered
Andromeda.7 What the Greeks called Ethiopia, the sacred writers deno
minate the land of Cush ; and they make mention of more than one of these
Cuthic regions. In exact accordance with them the Hindoo geographers
Herod. Hist. lib. ii. c. 91.
Herod. Hist. lib. vi. c. 54.
3 Pind. Pyth. Od. x.

* Solin. Polyhist. c. 58. Lustath. in Dionys. Pcrieg. ver. 870. Antip. Epig.
5 Eustath. in Dion. Pcrieg. ver. 874.
6 Eustath. in Dion. Pericg. ver. 874.
7 Ovid de art. amand. lib. i. ver. 53. Alctam. lib. iv. ver. 6C8. comp. lib. v. ver. 47. Yet
he is often thought to have performed the exploit in the African Ethiopia, to which Ovid,
himself more than once refers. See Metain. lib. iv. ver. 670. lib. v. ver. 17, 75, 187- The
fact is, the two Ethiopias, being peopled by the same race, had their legends and superstitions
in common.
438
speak of Cusha-duip within and Cmha-daip without ; meaning by the

former the vast tract of country which comprehends Persia, Babylonia,
India, Bactria, Cashgar, Boutan, and Thibet; and, by the latter, those
African districts separated from them by the sea, which were also colonized
by the descendants of Cush, and to which we at present exclusively applv
the name of Ethiopia. Perseus therefore is eminently to be sought for in the
oriental Cusha-dwip: and, in that country, we doubtless find him, venerated
both by the old Buddhic Persians to whom he communicated his name, and
by the warlike Chasas or Indo-Scythas of Cashgar and Thibet. The scene
of his adventure with Andromeda and the sea-monster is sometimes laid,
not in India, but at Joppa in Palestine.'
ascertained.
Of this the reason may easily be
The Philistim, in whose country Joppa was situated, were a
branch of the Palli or Scythian Shepherds, who subjugated Egypt; and

they were members of the very same family as the Chasas or Goths of
northern India. Hence Tzetzes calls Joppa a city of Ethiopia or Chusis*
tan* Being thus brought into the land of Palestine, he there espouses
Astarte or Astoreth, the Magna Mater of the Phenicians ; for Asteria and
Astarte are one character : and by her he becomes the father of the triple
Brimo or Hecate, who is the triple Cali or Devi of the Hindoos and the
Chasas.'
His wife Asteria is afterwards metamorphosed into the floating
island Delos, a legend which requires no comment.*
Cali or Brimo is clearly
the Diana of the Tauric Scythians: and, accordingly, we find Perseus

described as being also a king of Taurica, the child of the Sun, and the
brother of Eetes king of Colchis.1 Thus we are still led to identify him with
Buddha, the great god of the Scythians in all their settlements. Of these,
Colchis was one;
origin.6
for its inhabitants are said to have been of Indo-Scythic
Hence there was a mount Caucasus or Coh-Chasa near Colchis,
as well as one in northern India and another to the south of the Caspian or
Chasic sea. We find him also penetrating to the western ocean, to the
utmost extremities of Africa and Spain : and here it was, according to some,
1
1
*
"
Pau. Messen. p. 284. Tzetz. in Lyc. ver. 836.

1 Tzc-tz. in Lyc. ver. 836,
Lycoph. Cassan. ver. 1175, 1 176. Tzetz. in loc.
4 Hyg. Fab. 53.
Schol. in Apoll. Argon, lib. iii. ver. 199, Diod. Bibl. lib. iv. p. 248.
Tzetz. in Lyc. ver. 174.
THE OIIIOIN OF PAGAN IDOLATRY.

that he destroyed the Gorgons and cut off Medusa's head.'
439
In fact, the
theology of the Atlantians and that of the Scythians were the same : hence
Perseus is indifferently said to have slain the Gorgons upon the western
ocean and among the Hyperboreans, just as Atlas himself and the garden of
the Hesperides are sometimes placed in Mauritania and sometimes in Scythia.
2. Since Perseus then was the same as Buddha or Mercury, we shall
readily perceive why the Greeks represented him precisely in the same man
ner as their Hermes.
Mercury was depicted with a winged helmet on his head, with winged
sandals on his feet, with a bag and a crooked sword suspended to his side,
and with a rod in his hand terminating in a winged globe and encircled by
two serpents/ Such also was the equipment of Perseus. When he set out
on his expedition against the Gorgons, the nymphs furnished him with
winged sandals ; Mercury lent hhn his adamantine sabre ; the helmet of
Pluto guarded his head; and a wallet, which Tzetzes calls an ark, depended
at his side. To these he afterwards added the Gorgon's head surrounded
with serpents, which I suspect to be nearly allied to the head of Osiris and
the hieroglyphic of the globe serpent and wings.' The helmet of Pluto
unequivocally intimates the infernal character of Perseus, and points him
out to be, like Mercury, the fabled conductor of the dead. It was thought
to possess the power of rendering its wearer invisible by diffusing around
him the black shades of night.4
This, if I mistake not, alludes to the cele
brated aphanism or disappearance of the great father, which formed the

subject of the mournful part of the Mysteries. Sometimes the ancients
ascribed the same virtue to a ring, as in the romantic story of Gyges ; a
1 Tzctz. in Lyc. ver. 838. Ovid. Metam. lib. iv. ver. 6l566l, 7707841 Albric. Philos. dc deor. imag. c. 6.
3 Tzetz. in Lyc. ver. 838. What Tzetzes calls x.tf2wrs and xiptvts, Hesiod calls xi/3u"rit.
See his spirited description of Perseus in the visual attitude of feathered Mercury. Scut. Here.
Ter. 2l6237- It is observable that he gives his hero two serpents in his belt. See also Apollod. Bibl. lib. ii. c. 4. According to Heraclitus, the winged sandals of Perseus were the gift
of Mercury. Herac. de Incred. c. 94 Apoll. Bibl. lib. ii. c. 4. J 3. Hesiod. Scut. Here. ver. 227- Hyg. Poet. Astron. lib. ii.
c. 19.
ct,AP* v.
440
fiction, which has been duly transferred into various modern fairy-tales/
The reason was, because a ring was a symbol of the Ark, within the inclosure
of which the great father lay for a season invisible. Hence the ring or circle
was sacred to Buddha : and hence his navicular consort Ila or Argha was
esteemed the Ila-vratta or mundane circle of the Ark on the summit, of mount
Meru.
3. We are told, that Perseus was the Sun.* He was the Sun however
only in the same manner that Buddha, Iswara, Osiris, Bacchus, and all
the other chief gods of the Gentiles were : that is to say, he was the Sun in
his astronomical, and the great father in his human, character.
This is evident from the fable of his exposure in the ark, which has been
faithfully preserved by the Greeks. They inform us, that his grandfather
Acrisius king of Argos, enraged at the dishonour brought upon his family by
Danae, placed her and her infant son in an ark, which he set afloat on the
sea: but it drifted to the island Seriphus, and was safely brought to land by
a person named DictysS I need scarcely observe, that this is the many
times repeated story of Osiris or Bacchus ; and that Danae is but the femi
nine form of Danaus the reputed builder and navigator of the Argo, which
communicated its name to the city where Perseus was feigned to have been
born.
4. It is probable, that wings were attributed to Mercury and Perseus in
* Gyges, according to Plato, found a brazen horse in a cavern. Within the horse was the
body of a man of gigantic stature, having a brazen ring on his finger. This ring Gyges took,
and found that it rendered the wearer invisible. The cavern, the ring, and the giant, shew
pretty evidently, whence this fable originated. The mare was a form of Ceres or Hippa, the
mystic nurse of the ark-exposed Bacchus; it was also a form of the ship-goddess Ceridwen,
who bore Hu in safety through the waters of the deluge: the mare therefore symbolized the
Ark. The dead giant is the gigantic Buddha during the period of his deathlike slumber.
The inclosure of him within the mare amounts to the same thing as the inclosure of the dead
Osiris within the ark or wooden cow. And the cavern was one of those sacred grottos, within
which the rites of the great father were perpetually celebrated, and from which both he and
his initiated votaries were feigned to be born again.
1 Tzetz. in Lyc. vcr. 17.
3 Strab. Geog. lib. x. p. 487'. Nonni Dionys. lib. xxv. p. 425. Tzetz. in Lyc. ver. 838.
Apollod, Bibl.lih. ii. c.4.
THE ORIGIN OF PAOAN IDOLATRV.
441
allusion to the sails of ships, and consequently that they mark those deities CTIAp' Tto have been navigators. Albricus seems to insinuate some such idea, when
he compares the winged Perseus to a ship running before the wind and
describes him as a powerful king of Asia who sailed to many different regions
and conquered Africa.1
The fable of his turning men into stones, by display
ing before their eyes the formidable head of Medusa, is nearly allied to that
of the production of men from stones by Pyrrhaand Deucalion after the
flood, and to that of Saturn swallowing the stone Baitylus : in each of them
the rock-worship of Buddha, Mercury, or Mithras, seems to be alluded to.
In a similar manner, the story of his liberating Andromeda from the cetus
is built upon the symbolical worship of the fish within whose belly Buddha
once lay concealed, with a reference perhaps to those bloody human sacrifices
which so generally disgraced the pagan world. The story itself is a complete
repetition of the Uiensian tale, in which a parallel deliverance of Hesione
from a sea-monster is ascribed to Hercules. It may not be improper to
observe, that the crooked sword, given alike to Mercury and Perseus, is
called Harpe ; and that Harpe is also said to denote a scythe or sickle.1
From this circumstance I am led to suspect, that the faulchion in question
was no other than the scythe of Cronus : and the conjecture is strengthened
by the common identity of Cronus, Mercury, Perseus, and Buddha.
5. From the size of the sandal of Perseus, according to the Egyptian
priests of Chemmis, the hero must have been some six yards high. I have
considered the ascription of such a stature to him as one of the proofs of his
being the same as Buddha, who is usually represented either under the form
of a massy stone or as a person of gigantic altitude. We find evident traces
of both these modes of representation, wherever the worship of Buddha
prevailed. Thus, from such a style of exhibiting the god, originated the
popular notion, that the vast columns of Stonehenge were the work of
giants : and thus we may trace to the same source the stupendous Rhodian
Colossus and the no less stupendous image of Nebuchadnezzar. The very
name indeed of Colossus points out the deity, who was so represented from
1 Albric. Philos. de deor. iraag. c. 21.
1 Schol. in Iliad, lib. xix. vcr. 350. Hesych. Lex.
falx. Poet. Astron. lib. iii. c. 11.
Pag. Idol.
vOL. II.
Ilyginus expressly calls his sword

3 K
442
Hindostan in the east to Britain in the west. One of Buddha's titles is

Coll or Cala, and another is Esa : from Col-Esa, the compound of these
two, was probably derived the word Colossus. These remarks will serve as
a clue to the real history of the Cyclopes.
XXVIII. The Cyclopes are usually described as being of a gigantic sta
ture, and as each having a single eye in the centre of the forehead. They
were shepherds and musicians : yet they are said to have been monsters of
cruelty, devouring without remorse every stranger Upon whom they could
lay their hands. They were also most skilful mechanics : and, as giants are
thought to have framed Stonehenge, so to them were ascribed many re
markable works by the superstition of the ancients. They were the builders
of the vast walls of Tiryns. They were likewise the architects of Argos,
Mycenae, and Hermione. They forged the thunder of Jupiter, the miracu
lous helmet of Pluto, and the trident of Neptune.1 They were evidently
the same as the Telchines, Idei Dactyli, or Corybantes : both because they
are similarly represented as very skilful workmen, and because there is a
manifest correspondence in the names which they bear. Two of the Cory
bantes are called by Nonnus Acmon and Damneus or Damnameneus : the
author of the Phoronis calls the three Idei or Telchines Acmon, Damname
neus, and Celmis : Eusebius denominates them Telmis, Damnameneus, and
Delas ; and says, that they were the first workers in brass and iron : and
Virgil calls one of the three Cyclopes Pyracmon.1
The poets commonly place them in Sicily in the region of mount Etna,
where they partly follow their occupation of shepherds, and partly carry >on
their business of artizans. Nor was it without reason, that this country is
assigned to them : for Sicily appears to have very early received a colony of
Scythian Shepherds, who brought with them a tradition of the deluge, and
who by a common local appropriation asserted in after ages that their country
man Deucalion escaped to the summit of Etna.' Yet the preceding remarks,
1 Ovid, Metara. lib.xiii. Homer. Odyss. lib. ix. Apollod. Bibl. lib. ii. c. 2. S 1. Eurip.
Troad. ver. 1087. Senec. Thyest. act. ii. ver. 406. Here. fur. act. iv. ver. 996. Nonni
Dionys. lib. xli. p. 1068. Strab. Gcog.lib. iii. p. 372, 373. Apollod. Bibl. lib. i.e. 2. 1.
1 Nonni Dion. lib. xiii. p. 233. Phoron. apud Schol. in Apoll. Argon, lib. i. ver. 112).
Euseb. Praep. Evan. lib. x. c. 6. Virg. jEneid. lib. viii. ver. 424.
1 Hyg. Fab. 153. Lucian expressly calls Deucalion a Scythian. Luc. de dca Syr.
443
even exclusive of others which may be added to them, are sufficient to shew,
that we must by no means confine the Cyclopes to Sicily. Apollodorus
says, that, when they had built the walls of Tiryns, they inhabited the whole
country of Argolis.' They were likewise, according to Aristotle and the
scholiast on Euripides, a Thracian or Scythian race : and the latter adds,
that they were excellent workmen and received their name from their king
Cyclops.* They are also to be found in Egypt : for we are told by Hermippus, that the river Nile received its appellation from Nilus the son of Cyclops
an ancient king of the country.1 They were in short Cuthic or Scythian
deities : and the gigantic Cyclops their chief, who was venerated by the
Thracians, was no other than Coll or Buddha.
Sometimes he was called Polypheme, as the Greeks wrote the word, and
was described as a shepherd ; an occupation, which will lead us to the right
understanding of the name. The Scythians delighted to style themselves
Shepherds, under which appellation they once conquered and occupied
Egypt. But the name in their own language is Palli, Pali, pr Bali : hence
we read of a shepherd Philitis, by whose name the Egyptians distinguished
their pyramids ; and hence we find a country, the southern part of which
was colonized by the Scythic Philistim, designated by the appellation of
Palestine or (as the Hindoo geographers write the word) Pallisthan, that is
to say the land of the Palli.* The shepherd Philitis was the same as the old
Egyptian king Cyclops, and as the Sicilian shepherd Polypheme : for the
Greeks have formed the title Polypheme from Pali which signifies a Shep
herd. That Polypheme is to be esteemed a Scythian and therefore of the
same race as the Egyptian Shepherd-kings, is sufficiently evident from his
offspring. He is said to have been the father of three sons, Galatus, Celtus,
and Illyrius; from whom the nations of the Gauls, the Celts, and the Illyrians, were descended.' This genealogy at once points out his real charac
ter, and identifies him with Hercules and Cadmus, both of whom have been
already shewn to be the Scythic Buddha : for the Cuthic Hercules was simi*
*
1
*
Apollod. Bibl.lib. ii. c. 2. I.

Aristot. d,. mir. ausc. p. 732. Schol. in Eurip. Orest. ver. 966.
Schol. in A poll. Argon, lib. iv. ver. 26y.
Herod. Hist, lib. ii. c. 128.
5 Natal. Com. lib. ix. p. 510,
CHAiw.
444
THK OK1GIN OF PAGAN IDOLATRY.
larly the father of three sons, one of whom is said by Parthenius to have
been called Celtus ; and Cadmus is described as being the parent of that
very Illyrius, who is also made one of the children of Polypheme.1 Cyclops
must also have been the same as Cronus and have been worshipped in Crete.
This may be deduced, not only in a general manner from the identity of
Cronus and Buddha, but likewise from the correspondence of the Cyclopes
with the Tel chines.
These Telchines or Corybantes were the same as the
Curetes of Crete. But the Cretan Curetes sacrificed children to Cronus as

their chief deity.1 Therefore, since the Curetes or Telchines were the same
as the Cyclopes, Cronus the head of the former must be the same as Cyclops
the head of the latter.
1. If we further inquire into the history of the Cyclopes, we shall still be
led to a similar conclusion.
Hesiod and Apollodorus represent them as very ancient personages, three
in number, and the children of Uranus and Ge : and it may be remarked,
that Hesiod and the scholiast on Eschylus agree in calling one of them Arges
or Argus, which is a name of Buddha as the mariner god of the Argha.'
A general notion indeed prevailed, that there were three of them, born from
a yet older deity their common head and father. Since then the three Cyclopes
were the sons of Polypheme, and since they were also the sons of Uranus ;
Polypheme and Uranus are obviously the same person. But Uranus is
Arhan or Buddha : and his consort Ge is Ila the wife of Buddha ; for Ila,
like Ge, signifies the Earth or the World. Ila however was not only the
greater World or the Earth, but likewise the smaller World or the Ark ; at
is evident, both from her being the ship Argha, and from her being esteemed
the wife and daughter of one who was saved during the prevalence of an
universal deluge.
The birth therefore of the three Cyclopes from Uranus
and Ge means their birth, primarily from Adam and the Earth, and second
arily from Noah and the Ark, agreeably to the doctrine of the transmigratory
reappearance of the great father and his three sons : and, since their parent
1 Herod. Hist. lib. iv. c. 10. Parthen. Erot. c. 30.
z Porphyr. de abstin. lib. ii. 56.
3 Hesiod. Theog. ver. 139, 140.
vtr. 35 1.
Apollod. Bibl. lib. iii. c. 5. $ 4.
Apollod. Bibl. lib. i. c. 1. $ 2.
Schol.in Prom, vinct.
THE ORIGIN OF PAGAN IDOLATRV.
445
is Arhan or Buddha, we may safely conclude them to be the Buddhic triad ; C,U* vwhich originated, like all the other triads of the Gentiles, from the three sons
of Noah considered as a new manifestation of the three sons of Adam.
2. This point will be the more firmly established, the more thoroughly
we investigate their history.
We find them esteemed, not only the sons of Uranus, but likewise the
children of the Ocean ; by which was meant Noah, for in the pantheistic
theology the water on which he floated was reckoned one of his forms :
whence Typhon or the sea, who forced Osiris into the ark, was yet in some
sort identified with him ; and Iswara, who sailed over the ocean in the ship
Argha, is yet said to be the ocean itself.1 We also find them ascribed to
the era of the deluge, and, like all the arkite gods, reputed to be infernal
deities. They assisted Jupiter in his war against the Titans, which was the
same event as the war of the hero-gods with Typhon : and the altar of the
sphere, upon which he took a solemn oath by the waters of Styx previous to
his attacking his enemies or (as some more justly say) after he had conquered
them, was their workmanship.* But this altar was certainly that upon which
Noah offered up a sacrifice after the deluge, when God swore that the
waters should no more prevail to cover the earth : for, in the sphere, it is
placed close to the ship Argo and near the raven ; and the fabulous Cen
taur is depicted as the sacrificer upon it, a great proof of his piety, as
Eratosthenes observes from old tradition.' Since therefore the Cyclops and
his three sons built this altar, I see not how we can esteem them to be any
other than the transmigrating Noah and his triple offspring.
As infernal gods, the Cyclopes are said to have been cast into Tartarus by
their father Uranus : and here they still continued to exercise their craft as
artizans, for they built the lofty walls which separated the regions of happi
ness from those of misery.* The descent however into hell, as we have seen
1 Eurip. Cyclop, ver. 21, 22. Homer, in like manner, makes Polyphcme the son of Nep
tune or the sea.
1 Apollod. Bibl. lib. i. c. 2. 1. Hyg. Poet. Astron. lib. ii. c. 39. Schbl. in Arat. Phaen.
p. 52.
3 Eratost. Catast. 40.
4 Apollod. Bibl. lib. i. c. 1. Virg. .Eneid. lib. vi. ver. 630, 631.
446
with a remarkable uniformity in the various histories of the arkite deities, is

the same as the fabled death of Osiris or Bacchus : and that death means
only the inclosure within the Ark, which was viewed in the light of a coffin.
Hence the walls of Hades, which irrevocably separate between those who
are preserved and those who perish, must denote the sides of the Ark,
which the ancients occasionally described as the sacred city of the gods :
and these sides or walls, and the sacrificial altar, were doubtless constructed
by the same architects.1 A similar allusion is contained in the fable, which
ascribes to the Cyclopes the building of the walls of Argos. Argos, like
Theba, was the city of Argo or the Ark : and a city with its walls and gates
was a symbol of the Ship of Noah with its sides and door.
Sometimes we find the two ideas of the deluge and the infernal regions
immediately connected together in the legend of the Cyclopes. Thus Lycophron styles Polypheme the one-eyed Charon : for Tzetzes rightly remarks,
that by this one-eyed Charon he meant the Cyclops.1 But Charon and
Buddha are alike described as the conveyers of souls over the infernal waters :
the Ganges, the Nile, and the Styx, are equally the rivers of ihe mystic
hell, and equally shadow out the streams of the widely-prevailing deluge :
and the ship of Charon is declared by Diodorus to be no otuer than the
Baris, which was also the ship of Osiris, the Argo of the Greeks and
Egyptians, the Argha of the Hindoos.5
The principal Cyclops then being the same as Charon, who was supposed
to ferry souls in the Baris over the Acherusian marshes formed by the inun
dations of the Nile, the Cyclopes must be esteemed Egyptian deities ;
which corresponds with a part of their genealogy that has been already
noticed. Cyclops was reckoned the son of Nilus : but the Egyptians called
1 The answer of the oracle to the Athenians, that they should commit themselves to the
protection of wooden walls, is, I think, clearly constructed upon the established principles of
old mythology, which symbolized the inclosure of a ship by the inclosure of a city and there
fore the sides of the one by the walls of the other. As a maritime nation, we have now com
pletely naturalized the phrase in our own language ; but the turn of it is purely hicroglyphical.
1 Lycoph. Cassand. ver. 659, 660.
' Diod. Bibl. lib. i. p. 87.
Schol. in loc.
447
their sacred river the Ocean, because it symbolized the deluge on which the
Ark of the real Osiris was once* set afloat : hence we find the origin of the
Cyclopes deduced sometimes from the Nile and sometimes from the Ocean.
With the same reference to the deluge, the Hindoos call the Nila or blue
stream of Africa the river of Cali ; and feign, that the Sun resided on its
banks immediately after the flood.
Cali is a name of Buddha, considered
as the author of time or as the founder of a new era ; and Buddha himself is
the solar Noah. The Nile therefore, being the river of Cali, is the river of
Buddha: and Buddha is the god Nilus ; for Water or the Ocean, repre
sented by the Nile, is thought by the Hindoos to be one of the forms of
their pantheistic diluvian god. Accordingly, the Nile was esteemed by the
Egyptians the greatest of gods. He was reckoned the same as Zeuth or
Theuth, and as Siris or Osiris. He was also identified with the Sun, not
withstanding he is said to be the Ocean : a circumstance apparently involving
a contradiction, yet perfectly according with the notions of the old mytho
logists ; for the same person, who was the Ocean and the god of the Ocean,
was astronomically the Sun.1 From this source arose the fables of the Sun
being a very ancient prince ; who sailed in a ship over the waters of the
sea, and who flourished on the banks of the Nile immediately after the
- deluge.
3. The Cyclops then being the god Nilus, we shall easily trace the con
nection of his children the Cyclopes with Vulcan.
Nilus or Cali was esteemed one of the oldest sovereigns of Egypt.* As
such, he must be identified with Thoth and Vulcan ; each of whom, as we
have already seen, was the same as Buddha. Accordingly Vulcan, who is
sometimes said to have been produced from an egg, is at other times repre
sented as the son of Nilus or Cyclops.' He was esteemed the parent of the
three Cabiri or Telchines : but these were the same as the three Cyclopes :
consequently Vulcan was the chief Cyclopian deity. Hence we find him
presiding over the three Cyclopes, and directing their labours.4
1 Parmen. apud Athen. Deipnos. lib. v. p. 203, Eustath. in Dion. Perieg. ver. 221, 223.
1 Eustath. in Dion. Perieg. ver. 221.
5Cicer. dc nat. deor. lib. iii. c. 22.
4 Virg. .Eneid. lib. viii. ver. 4t6.
448
nooK iv.
This however is not the only mode, in which we may trace his connec
tion with them. The Cabiri are sometimes said to be seven in number ; and
thus, with the head of their family, they make up the eight great gods of Egypt.
But of those great gods Vulcan was reputed the chief and the oldest, as occu
pying the place of the venerable patriarch, who is indifferently described as
being born from the ocean and from the arkite egg. Now it is a curious cir
cumstance, that, although the Cyclopes are generally represented as being
three brothers, the children of one father ; they are sometimes also spoken
of as constituting a company of seven persons, for such was the supposed
number of the Cyclopes who built the walls of Tiryns.1 When it is consi
dered therefore, that they were Egyptian deities, and that their chief was
Nilus or Cali or Vulcan, we can scarcely doubt, that the seven Cyclopes
were the seven Cabiri, and that with their head they constituted the eight
great gods. Their parent in short, the principal Cyclops, was Buddha in
his character of the wonderful artizan Twashta or Taut : and the notion of
their being expert workmen originated from the Noetic family being the.
builders of the Ark.
4. One thing remains to be accounted for in the legend of the Cyclopes,
the circumstance of their each having only a single eye in the centre of their
foreheads.
This mode of representing them seems to have arisen from the attach
ment of the ancients to symbols, which the Greeks perpetually misunder
stood and perverted. Plutarch tells us, that the Egyptians depicted Osiris,
in his quality of the universal lord and governor, by the hieroglyphic of an
eye and a sceptre : whence an eye was frequently carved over the portals
of their temples.* From this manner of exhibiting their principal deity the
fable in question probably originated. The statues of Buddha or Pali were
of a gigantic size, and a single eye was the hieroglyphic of the great god of
the Egyptians : the Greeks united the two ideas, and thus of the Shepherd
Pali they formed the one-eyed Shepherd Polypheme.
XXIX. I have supposed the chief Cyclops to be Mahiman or Buddha,
offering such arguments in favour of my opinion as I have been able to col
lect together : and, agreeably to this conjecture, it is excellently observed by
' Strab. Geog. lib. viii. p. 372, 373.
THE ORIGIN OF PAGAN IDOLATliY.
449
Mr. Wilford, that, in the countries of Persia, Syria, and Asia Minor, we . CHAP- vfind many traces of Mahiman and his followers in the stupendous edifices,
remarkablefor their magnificence and solidity, which the Greeks ascribed
to the Cyclopes.1 But, as he afterwards truly states, many of these same
buildings were also given to the person, whom the classical writers call
Memnon : and I think we have only to investigate the history of this fabulous
hero to assent to his opinion, that Memnon and Mahiman are one both in
name and character, and consequently that Memnon is the same as Cyclops
or Vulcan.
1. The word Mahiman signifies the great Manes or Menu : and the
Sanscrit Maha, which denotes great, was pronounced by the Greeks as one
syllable ; for Hesychius tells us, that Mai is great in the language of the
Indians, and it still bears the same import in modern Coptic. Now one of
the oblique cases of Mahiman or Maiman is Mahimna or Maimna, which
the Greeks could have pronounced in no other way than Maimna orMemna :
and hence, Mr. Wilford supposes, that the name of Memnon originated.* I
am willing to assent to his conjecture with a slight alteration or rather addi
tion.
Buddha or Mahiman is allowed by the Hindoos to be the triad
expressed by their sacred monosyllable Om. But Om is evidently the On
of the Egyptians ; which was a title of the Sun, from the circumstance of
the great father and his triple offspring being venerated in that luminary.
Memnon then I should conceive to be formed rather from Maiman com
pounded with On, than from the oblique case Maimna : whence MaimanOn, Maimn-On, or Memn-On, will signify the great solar Menu. This
person, according to the Hindoos, was the father of Sharmana-Cardama or Samana-Cadam by his wife Maha-Manya.
But Samana-Cadam, as we have already seen, is the Cadmus of Greece, Egypt, and
Phenicia ; and the Somono-Codom or Buddha of Pegu and Ceylon :
while Maha-Manya, which is clearly the feminine form of Mahi-Man,
is the great arkite mother, the Maya and Mania both of the east and of
the west.
' Asiat. Res. vol. iii. p. 200.
Pag. Idol.
* Ibid. p. 199.
vol. ii.
3 L
450
Bwik tv.
2, Etymology however must by no means be allowed to decide a point,

though it may be usefully added to circumstantial evidence as a secondary
and subsidiary argument. Let us proceed then to examine the accounts of
Memnon which have come down to us, that we may be enabled to judge,
how far we are warranted in adopting the conclusion that he is the same as
Mahiman or Buddha.
(1.) The general story is, thatTithonus was the brother of Priam king of
Troy, that he engaged the affections of Aurora, and that by her he became
the father of Memnon. Aurora conferred upon him the gift of immortality,
but unluckily forgot to render her gift really valuable by exempting him from
the infirmities of old age. The consequence was, that he experienced all
the inconveniences of Swift's immortals of Laputa, without the possibility
of being released from them by the friendly hand of death. At length
Aurora, pitying his deplorable situation, changed him into a grasshopper.
During the period of their mutual passion she had, it seems, conveyed him
to Ethiopia which lies to the southward of Egypt : and of this country his
son Memnon, though a foreigner by descent and a mere cadet of the dis
tant royal family of Troy, contrived in some unaccountable manner to
make himself sovereign. His. uncle Priam experienced the benefit of this
lucky circumstance : for, as we are told in the true history of the siege of
Troy, the swarthy warrior brought a considerable body of Ethiopian troops
to the assistance of the Iliensians.
In this noble field of chivalrous adven
ture he approved himself the worthy successor of Hector : until at length, ill
an evil hour having slain Antilochus the son of Nestor, he himself fell by
the invincible hand of the vengeful Achilles. His body was burned on a
funeral pile with much solemnity : and, at the request of his disconsolate
mother Aurora, Jupiter conferred upon him an honour of a very peculiar
nature, such as had never been heretofore bestowed on mortal man. While
the blazing pile consumed the earthly remains of the hero, a flight of birds
suddenly issued from the flames. Thrice they circled the burning mass
which had given them birth : when, dividing themselves into two armies,
they fought with such fury that more than half of them dropped dead
into the fire.
But this was not all : the same mysterious occurrence took
451
place every year, and the angry ghost of Memnon was annually propitiated by the blood of the winged combatants.'
(2.) When the ancient historians seriously considered the legend of Mem
non, they naturally enough wondered how he could manage to march an
army of Ethiopians all the way from the southern extremity of Egypt to
the banks of the Hellespont : and well they might, considering the age in
which Memnon is placed ; though his making himself king of Ethiopia at
all seems to me by far the most marvellous exploit of the two. However,
by way of mending the matter, they shifted the scene from the African to
the Asiatic Ethiopia.
Thus Diodorus tells us, that Tithonus led an
army from Troas into the eastern regions of Asia, that he penetrated as far
as Ethiopia, and that this gave rise to the fable of Aurora being the mother
of Memnon who afterwards assisted his uncle Priam with a body of Asiatic
Ethiopian troops.* He elsewhere gives the narrative more at large, dropping
however entirely the emigration of Tithonus from Troy. When Teutamus
was king of Assyria, his empire extended over all Asia ; and Priam, the
petty sovereign of the Iliensians, was one of his vassals. At that time
Memnon, the son of Tithonus, was captain-general of Persia, and was held
in high esteem by the king. Agamemnon invading the territories of Priam,
Memnon was dispatched by his master to the assistance of the Trojan
prince, who had called upon his superior lord for protection against the
Greeks. In this expedition he commanded ten thousand Ethiopians and as
many Susiani ; and at length perished, fighting bravely at their head. As a
proof that Memnon came out of Persia and the Asiatic Ethiopia, out of
that country, in short, which the Hindoos call Cusha-dwip within, Diodorus
informs us, that he built a palace in the citadel of Susa ; which after his own
name was styled Memnonia, and which continued in existence until the
Persians obtained the sovereignty of the east. He also constructed a very
magnificent public road, which even in the days of the historian continued
to bear the appellation of Memnonium.
To these circumstances Strabo
' Tzetz. in Lycoph. ver. 18. Apollod. Bibl. lib. iii. c. 11. 4. Hesiod. Thcog. ver. 98i.
Mosch. Idyll, iii. ver. 4345. Ovid. Metara. lib. xiii. ver. 576622. Hyg. Fab. 270, 112.
Lilian, deanim. lib. v.
1 Diod. Bibl. lib. iv. p. 276.
c***
452
book iv.
adds, that his tomb was shewn in the province of Susiana : and Pausanias,
who likewise brings him, not from the African Ethiopia, but
the banks of the Choaspes, says, that his line of march to
questionably established by the traditions of the Phrygians,
nued to point out to the curious traveller his several
from Susa and

Troy was un
who still conti
successive en
campments.*
(3.) The story now begins to assume something more of the semblance
of genuine history : but unluckily the airy fabric is dissipated, ere it is well
constructed, by the candid statement of Diodorus himself. The Ethiopians
of Upper Egypt obstinately refused to subscribe to the truth of this detail.
They claimed the redoubtable Memnon as their countryman : and, more
liberal than their Cuthic brethren of Asia, they added to his twenty thou
sand infantry two hundred war-chariots.
But to this claim those brethren might demur on the score of circum
stantial evidence : and they might shame the nationality of the Africans by
adducing, as stubborn witnesses, the Memnonian palace, the Memnoniau
road, and the Memnonian tomb, all within the limits of the province Su
siana.
So we might imagine : but we shall find, that the Africans have just as
much evidence of this description to produce as the Asiatics. They had
equally, as Diodorus and Strabo fairly allow, a palace illustrated by the
name of Memnonium : and they could moreover boast of a stupendous
colossal statue of the hero, which possessed the singular quality of uttering
musical sounds when the morning and evening rays of the Sun played upon
it. They were likewise every fifth year witnesses to the mysterious battle
of the Memnonian birds, which occurred in tiieir country no less than in
Troas : and they could even produce one of their tribes, which was de
signated by the appellation of Memnones.1
Thus it appears, that the claims of the two rival Ethiopias, the Cushadwip within and the Cusha-dwip without, are balanced with the nicest accu1 Diod. Bibl. lib. ii.p. 109. Strab. Geog. lib. xv. p. 728. Pausan. Phoc. p. 669.
1 Diod. Bibl. lib. ii. p. 109. Strab. Geog. lib. xvii. p. 813. Crement. apud Plin. lib. ii.
c -26.
Plin. lib. vi. c. 30.
THE ORIGIN OF PAGAN' IDOLATRY.
453
racy : each adduces tradition, and each corroborates tradition by circumstantial evidence. Yet all this anxiety of appropriation, if we are to be
lieve the Greeks^ was occasioned by the son of an emigrant younger
brother of a petty prince, whose territory was situated on the eastern shore
of the Hellespont.
(4.) But we have not yet finished the history of our fortunate adventurer.
This captain-general of the Persians, this prince of Asiatic Ethiopia, and
this sovereign of African Ethiopia, contrives to add to the latter monarchy
the ancient kingdom of Egypt : and thus we find him reigning at once over
the Egyptians and the Ethiopians ; that is to say, we find him presiding
over the whole of that country which the Hindoos style Cusha-dwip
without.
Eusebius, following Africanus, says, that the Memnon, whose colossal
statue uttered musical sounds, was a king of Egypt : and Strabo states it
to be a prevailing opinion, that the Egyptians called the Memnon, who was
at the siege of Troy, Ismandes or Maindes or Mendes.1 But Mendes or
Pan, as we have seen, was an ancient god and fabulous prince of the coun
try, the same as Buddha or Thoth or Menu or Minos.1 He was thought to
have built the Labyrinth : and we have a story of another Labyrinth in
Crete, connected with Minos and the Minotaur. Mendes therefore being
the same as Memnon, the Labyrinth must have been a Memnonium ; by
which I understand a temple contrived with numerous intricate passages for
the celebration of the Mysteries. In fact Mendes and Memnon are one
title, only somewhat differently compounded : for Mendes is Mend-Esa; and
Memnon is Mai-Men-On. This last appellation was occasionally written
Mennon or Menon, which is Mai-Men-On with the omission of the epithet
Mai or Great.1 There is much the same difference between the appellations
Mendes and Ismandes, as there is between Menon and Memnon : for Mendes
is Mend-Esa, and Ismandes is Isa-Mend-Esa. Memnon being thus identified
with Mendes or Ismandes, and Memnon and Mendes being alike declared
' Kuseb. Chron. p. 72. Strab. Geog. lib. xvii. p. 811, 813.
1 Plin. Nat. Hist. lib. vi. c. 35. lib. xxxvi.c. 7. Harduin.
CUAP' Vt
454
book it.
THK OHIGIN OF PAGAN IDOLATRY.
to be an ancient sovereign of Egypt, we Bhall find precisely the same cha

racter attributed also to Ismandes : for the person, who bears that compound appellation, is, I am persuaded, no other than the renowned Osymandyas ; Ismandes and Osymandyas being evidently one title, differently written
according to a somewhat different pronunciation. Memnon therefore is the
same as Osymandyas : and the fabled tomb of Osymandyas was really a
Memnonian temple. Thus decidedly was Memnon esteemed an Egyptiau king.
Accordingly, the description, which Diodorus gives of the colossal statue
of Osymandyas at the entrance of the magnificent building said to be his
tomb, clearly proves it to have been a statue of Ismandes or Memnon. In
a passage, which appears to have suffered some corruption,1 he says, that
1 At least such has been thought to be the case. The words of Diodorus are, Hap Ss rrtv
ei<raSov avSficcvrots etvai rgei(, i% svo; nuf Kavraf Xi9u, MffUWOf tou Suxwron. Now, since
the central colossal statue is afterwards said to be the image of Osymandyas, these words, as
they now stand, must be translated as follows. At the avenue of entrance there are three
statues, all of a single stone, [the work] of Memnon the Sucnite: accordingly, such is the
sense given to them in the annexed Latin translation. But Salmasius, dissatisfied with the
reading, proposes the following emendation. AyS^xytx; hyat Tgtii, e ivof reu; itavro,;
repvofieYoVi Suijwrou : that is, There are three statues, all hewn, out of one block of Syenite
stone. The alteration certainly makes excellent sense: but it may be doubted, whether there
is any occasion for it. Many stupendous works, both in the Asiatic and in the African
Ethiopia, were attributed to Memnon ; just in the same manner as the Greeks gave many ex
traordinary edifices to the Cyclopes. Why then may we not retain the common meaning, and
suppose that this statue was reputed to be one of the various works of Memnon? It was, I
am persuaded, in point of design, a Memnonian statue ; both from the description given of
it, aud because I have little doubt that Memnon and Osymandyas were the same person. We
may observe, that the supposed artist is called the Sucnite. This title gives me additional
reason to suspect, that Salmasius has been too hasty in his correction. A tribe of the Cushim
or African Ethiopians were called Suchim, according to the Masoretic punctuation : and
they are mentioned with the Lubim, as forming part of the army of Shishak king of Egypt.
SChron. xii. 3. These seem evidently to be what Ptolemy has Grecized into the Scenites, and
whom he places after th Etbiopic Memnones. Gcog. p. 114. I take it then, that Diodorus, in
calling Memnon a Sucnite, means to say, that he was an Ethiopic Suchi or Scenite. This
title is clearly of Scythic origin. The Suchim, or Sachim, or Sacanites, or Scenites, are a
branch of the great Scythian family, called by the Hindoos Sacas and Sacasenas, and known
in their European settlements under the denomination of Saxe and Saxons. They took the
name from the god Saca or Sacya, as the Memnonites did from the god Maiman-On or Memn
455
this statue was in a sitting attitude, and that its bulk was so vast that the
measure of its foot exceeded seven cubits. On either side were two other
figures of much inferior dimensions, standing erect and reaching as high asthe knees of the colossus, designed, according to the popular account, for
the mother and daughter of Osymandyas. The whole stupendous group
was hewn out of a single stone : and it was inscribed, I am Osymandyas,
king of kings ; a title assumed on account of his extensive conquests, and
particularly on account of his wars with the Scythians of Bactria or upper
India.'
Such was the colossus of Osymandyas : let us now compare it with the
statues of Memnon.
According to Mr. Norden, who himself surveyed the palace Memnonium
in the Thebais, the vocal statue of Memnon is now so wholly dismantled,
that its original posture cannot be determined by bare inspection : for the body
alone remains formed out of a single piece of black granite, and at present
thrown down and half buried in the precise place which Philostratus most ac
curately marks out as its scite when complete : but this deficiency is amply
made up by the testimony of the ancients. Pausanias expressly says, that
it was in a sitting posture : and Pliny and Philostratus agree in describing it
as being made of a black or iron-coloured stone.* So likewise the language
used by Strabo, when he relates his visit to it for the purpose of hearing the
mysterious music, clearly intimates, that its posture was that of a person
sitting : for he says, that the upper parts from the seat had fallen down,
and that a melodious sound was believed to issue every day from that part
of the colossus which remained upon the seat}
On. Nor need we wonder at finding a race of Sac him or Saxons in upper Egypt : for, as
the progress of the European Saxons and Goths may be distinctly traced from the mountainous
regions of northern India ; so we are expressly told, that the African Cuths, and consequently
the Sachim and the Memnonites, emigrated out of the very same country of Cusha-dwip
within or Asiatic Ethiopia. Perhaps then we may venture to retain the common reading of
Diodorus as the genuine one : in which case, his Mcmnon-Sucnites will be no other than the
personage, to whom the Hindoos apply the titles of Mahiman and Sacya.
' Diod. Bibl. lib. i. p. 44.
1 Paus. Attic, p. 78. Plin. Nat. Hist. lib. xxxvi. c. 7. Philost. in vit. Apoll. Tyan. lib. vi. c. 4.
1 Strab. Gcog. lib. xvii. p. 316.
CHxr'
456
Still we have to learn, whether the statue of Memnon had two smaller
figures standing on each side of it, so as to answer perfectly to the descrip
tion given by Diodorus of the statue of Osymandyas. This point, I believe,
cannot be positively ascertained : yet we may come so very near to the
mark, that we may consider the question as little short of being determined
in the affirmative.
Mr. Norden gives an engraving of two stupendous
colossi, which yet remain in a perfect state, at a very short distance from
the palace Memnonium. They are removed asunder no more than twenty
one paces, so that they must clearly be considered as connected with each
other : and upon the legs of one of them are still to be seen a variety of
Greek inscriptions, attesting that the writers had heard the musical sounds
which issued from the neighbouring statue of the hero.
Neither of them
can be the musical statue itself ; because, to say nothing of their situation,
they are each entire, but the celebrated image of Memnon was already
broken shortfrom the seat even in the time of Strabo.* With respect to
their form, they represent, the one a man, and the other a woman. They are
no less than fifty feet in height : each is in a sitting attitude : and each, ex
actly according to Diodorus's description of the statue of Osymandyas, has two
smaller figures standing on either side and reaching with their heads to the
knees of the large statue.* It is to be observed, that we have here two
colossi, a male and a female : and it is a remarkable circumstance, that such
appears to have been the usual mode in which they were associated toge
ther. We learn from Diodorus, that near the colossal statue of Osyman
dyas, or (if I may venture to say so) of Memnon, there was another de
tached statue of a woman, hewn like the first out of a single stone, twenty
cubits in height, and wearing upon its head three diadems, to denote that
this supposed mother of Osymandyas was the daughter, the wife, and the
parent, of a king.' And, in a similar manner, we are told by Strabo, that
the statue of Memnon did not stand alone, but that near it was a second
1 Strab. Geog. lib. xvii. p. 816. To this circumstance also Juvenal alludes, when he says,
Dimidio magicte resonant ubi Memnone chorda;. Sat. xv. ver. 5.
1 See Plate II. Fig. 4.
THE ORIGIN OF PAGAN ID01ATRY".
457
colossus, at that time entire, having escaped the mutilation which had been
the fate of its companion.' Hence, when we consider the perfect resem
blance both in sex and form which subsists between the two yet remaining
colossi and those described by Diodorus at the tomb of Osymandyas, we
can scarcely, I think, doubt, that the three pair, namely that at the Memnonium, that near the Memnonium, and that at the tomb, were all constructed
with the same idea ; and consequently that each represented the same male
and female, whoever they might be.
If then one of the male statues re
presented Memnon, as undoubtedly it did, all the three must be considered

as representing him ; which exactly coincides with the opinion, that
Osymandyas, being the same as Ismandes, is thence also the same as
Memnon. And again, if one of the female statues represented the mother
of Osymandyas, that daughter, wife, and parent, of a king ; all the three
must similarly be esteemed as representations of the same personage.
(5.) Memnon being thus a king of Egypt, as well as an Ethiopian both
of Asia and Africa, a fresh perplexity arises ; how he could be of Trojan
origin himself, and how he could bring succours to Priam. Perizonius,
esteeming the war of Troy a portion of genuine history, endeavours to
make out, that Tithonus was the Proteus mentioned by Herodotus as being
the king of Egypt at that period, and that Memnon was his son.* But this
serves only to render confusion worse confounded : for the Egyptian
Proteus received the diluvian Bacchus when he wandered over the whole
world, long before the siege of Troy, supposing such a siege to have taken
place ; Proteus in short, the old man of the ocean, was the same as Phtha
and Buddha.'
Wearied out probably by these eternal contradictions, some writers have
cut the Gordian knot instead of loosing it. Thus, as the Egyptians assured
Herodotus, that Helen never came near Troy, but was detained by Proteus
while Paris was sent home without her : so Philostratus declares, that
Memnon had no concern with the siege of that place, but that he quietly
* Strab. Geog. lib. xvii. p. 8l6.
* Periz. Orig. ^Lgypt. c. xv. p. 289.
3 Apollod. Bibl. lib. iii. c. 5. $ I.
Pag. Idol.
vol. ii.
3M
458
lived and died in Ethiopia, where he reigned during the space of five gener
ations. He allows indeed, that he was contemporary with the Trojan
war : but he says, that the Memnon, who so much distinguished him
self against the Greeks, was quite another person. As for the Ethiopic
Memnon, the Egyptians and Ethiopians esteemed him a god, and duly cele
brated sacred rites in honour of him at Meroe and Memphis.1
(6.) We have however yet further difficulties to encounter, if we be ad
venturously determined to bring Memnon to Troy and to admit the legend
of its siege into the page of genuine history.
Tithonus is not always represented as the son of Laomedon, as the bro
ther of Priam, and as the paramour of Aurora : Apollodorus gives an ac
count of him widely different in all these particulars ; yet there is sufficient
in it to shew, that the same Tithonus is meant, who is usually esteemed the
father of Memnon. He tells us, that Cephalus, the son of Mercury and
Hersa, engaged the affections of Aurora ; that the goddess carried him off
into Syria ; and that there she bore him a son called Tithonus. He adds,
that Tithonus was the father of Phaethon ; Phaethon, of Astyndus ; Astynous, of Sandochus ; Sandochus, of Cinyras king of the Assyrians ; and
Cinyras, who most unaccountably (if this genealogy is to be esteemed sober
truth) emigrates with his people into Cyprus, of Adonis.1 It is evident,
that the preceding legend is the same in substance as that of the Trojan Ti
thonus : the difference between them is, that Cephalus in the one occupies
the place of Tithonus in the other, that Tithonus in a similar manner is
substituted for Memnon, and that Aurora becomes the parent of Tithonus
instead of being his paramour. The scene is laid in Syria : next it is
transported into Cilicia, for Sandochus is said to have migrated into that
country : then it shifts into Assyria, by which I take it that the province of
Babylonia was specially meant ; and the son of the wandering Sandochus
suddenly becomes king of Assyria : lastly it is once more removed into
Cyprus ; for Cinyras, whose erratic propensities seem to have been as strong
as his father's, not satisfied with his splendid eastern monarchy, both emi
grates himself, and contrives to persuade his people to emigrate with him.
* Herod. Hist. lib. ii. c. 113 120. Philost. in vit. Apoll. Tyan. lib. vi. c. 4. Heroic,
c. iii. 4.
* Apollod. Bibl. lib. iii. c. 13. #. 3.
459
Here he marries the daughter of the Cyprian king, and by her has Adonis:
yet Adonis is also said to have been born both in Assyria and Phenicia.
He was moreover, as we have already seen, the same person as Osiris and
Bacchus, the same in short as Noah who was preserved in an Ark.
Such are the mythologic genealogies of the ancients ; which, if literally
understood, will ever be found to bid defiance to the utmost efforts of the
most acute chronologer. In the present instance, Tithonus, who is usually
represented as the brother of Priam, is yet made the remote ancestor of
Adonis or Osiris : consequently, the siege of Troy long precedes the epoch
of the Phenician and Assyrian deity, whose whole history plainly demon
strates him to be the scriptural Noah.
3. The truth of the matter seems to be, that in all countries mythology
has insensibly melted into romance, and that the age of the hero-gods is
separated from that of the heroes by a line as imperceptible as that which
divides the colours of the rainbow. Whatever be the basis of the Trojan
war, the superstructure is certainly a mass of disguised ancient mythology,
which can never be tried by the rules of authentic history. -If we suppose
Memnon to have literally fought and died in the plains of Ilium, we must
be content to give easy credence to a tissue of impossible absurdities : but,
if we adopt the opinion that he was an ancient god of the Chasas and that
he was the same both in title and person as Mahiman or Buddha, every
difficulty will be removed, and each part of the fable will accommodate
itself with curious facility.
(1.) Susa was the capital of the province of Cissia, as the name was
written by the Greeks : but Cissia was doubtless so called as being the land
of Cush; which the Greeks denominated Ethiopia, but which the Hin
doos, accurately preserving the scriptural name, term the country of Chusa
or in one word Chusistan. It was a part of the large region, which they
distinguish by the appellation of Cusha-dwip within, as being full of the
various settlements of the Chusas, Chasas, or Scuths ; and which the Greeks
knew by the name of the eastern or Asiatic Ethiopia, as specially contra
distinguished from the south-western or African Ethiopia. Hence, since
Buddha or Mahiman was ever the great god of the Chasas, we need not
wonder to find such distinct traces of him at Susa. There was not only a
460
TH1C ORIGIN OF PAGAN IDOLATRY,
book it. palace, or rather temple, at that place, called Memnonia ; and a magnifi
cent road, attributed to the hero, and called after !um Memnonium : but, as
we are told by Herodotus who flourished long prior to Diodorus, Susa itself
was styled the city of Memnon and the royal habitation of Memnon.1
The Chasas also penetrated into Asia Minor, and as usual carried their
religion with them. Hence we find a Memnon connected with Troy : and
hence we may satisfactorily account for the various encampments pointed
out by the Phrygians as the works of that hero, which were to be seen in
the route from Babylonia or eastern Ethiopia into the district of Troas.
They were thrown up, not by Memnon, but by his worshippers in the course
of their progress westward. This exactly accords with the account given
us by the Hindoo writers. They say, that Bactria, which is part of the
high Indo-Scythic tract of country that constitutes the sacred mountain of
Meru crowned with the holy circular range of Ida-vratta, is the native coun
try of the Sacas or Sacasenas : that from thence they penetrated into Col
chis ; in the neighbourhood of which we meet with another Caucasus or hill
of the Chasas and numerous indications of the same enterprizing family :
and that they also emigrated into Placsha-dwip or Asia Minor, which from
them was afterwards denominated Saca-a\vip.* Accordingly, the whole fa
bulous history of Troy is Indo-Scythic. Ilus, the reputed founder of Ilkim,
who is led by a cow to the scite of his future city, is the same person as
Cadmus, of whom an exactly similar story is told in regard to Thebes.
Cadmus is the Cadam of the Buddhists ; and Ilus is- the husband of their
Ila or Ida. Both are the same as Buddha or Memnon or Saca : both are
the same also as the Cadmon and Ilus of the Phenicians, the latter of whom
is represented by Sanchoniatho as being the brother of Dagon or Siton ; for
the Phenicians were another colony of Chasas, who came from Babylonia
and the borders of the Erythrean sea, that is to say, from the immediate vi1 Herod. Hist. lib. v. c. 53, 54. lib. vii. c. 151. In the Hebrew or Babylonic language,
the game word is used to denote a palace and a temple : and the ancients were wont to call,
by the common name of a house, both the ordinary habitation of a mortal and a building
erected in honour of a god. Hence, when Memnon was degraded into a hero, his temple
caine to be denominated ha palace.
1 Asiat. Re*, vol. vi. p. 51 6.
THE ORIGIN OF PAGAN" IDOLATRY".

cinity of Snsa and out of the eastern Ethiopia or Cusha-dwip.
461
In a similar
manner, the appellations of the Trojan, the Cretan, and the Gothic, mount
Ida, were alike brought by different branches of the same potent family
from the Ida-vratta of Cashgar and Bactria : for the Iliensians, the Cretans,
and the Goths of more modern times, were equally Scythians, or Chasas,
or eastern Ethiopians, from mount Meru or the high region which stretches
to the north of Hindostan. Hence the favourite fiction of the Romans and of
our own ancestors in the middle ages, that their forefathers were Trojans, is
not altogether void of foundation ; since they were all equally of Scythic or
Chusean origin. Ila or Ida was the wife and daughter of Buddha. She
was the same as the ship Argha : and she was accounted the circle of the
World, of which the Argha was also supposed to be a symbol. The reason
of this, as I have frequently had occasion to observe, was, that the Ark
was esteemed an epitome of the World : whence the two Worlds, the greater
and the less, were perpetually represented by common emblems. Now it
is a curious circumstance, that Ida enters into the history of Memnon, no
less than into that of Buddha. The birth of Memnon from Aurora or the
goddess of the dawn certainly means no more than that his origin is to be
sought for in the east.' We must look for him therefore in eastern Ethio
pia, or (as the Hindoos call it) Cusha-dwip wiihin : and in that country we
shall find him, evidently identified with Mahiman or Buddha by being de
scribed as the son of Ida. Teutamus, king of Assyria or Babylonia, to
whom Tithonus repaired when (as it is fabled) he left the kingdom of his
brother Priam, had a daughter named Ida, whom he gave in marriage to
the emigrant Trojan prince. She in due time became the mother of Mem
non the captain-general of the Persians, who led a body of Ethiopic and
Susan warriors to the assistance of his uncle Priam.1 Now we have seen,
that Memnon and Tithonus must be the same person, because exactly the
same account is given of each of them being born from Aurora, though,
agreeably to the pagan system of fabulous genealogies, the one is described
as the son of the other.
The introduction of Ida however seems to me
1 See Diod. Bibl. lib. iv. p. 276.
1 Ban. Mythol. vol. iv. p. 327.
CHAp' v.
462
book iv. finally to settle the matter. She is evidently the Ila or Ida of the Budd
hists : and the notion of her complicated relationship to Menu or Buddha
will best explain the character which she supports in the present fable. The
Ark was esteemed the mother, the wife, and the daughter of Noah, accord
ing to the different aspects under which it was viewed : and exactly such
is the triple relationship, in which Ida is here exhibited. She is the mother
of Memnon, the wife of Tithonus, and the daughter of Teutamus.
But
Memnon, Tithonus, arid Teutamus, as their history and their names alike
declare, are all equally Buddha or Mahiman or Taut : for Tithon is Tath
in composition with On, the Titan of the Greeks and the Teithan of the old
Celts ; and Teutam is the same word pronounced Teut in composition with
Om, which is but the Hindoo mode of writing On ; so that Tithon and
Teutam are in fact one appellation.
Another colony of the Chasas established themselves in African Ethiopia :
hence we find also in that country very vivid traditions respecting Memnon,
who was supposed to have been an ancient prince, and who was venerated
as a god ; hence likewise we meet with a tribe of Ethiopians called Memnones, and another which bore the name of Sachim or Sacas. The re
membrance of this migration has been distinctly preserved : and the nation
of the African Cushim was formed by the secession of a part of the Shep
herd-kings southward.
This will account for the statue and temple of
Memnon in the Thebais : and it will likewise account for that hero being
equally esteemed a king of Egypt and of Ethiopia.1
(2.) Though the Ethiopians of Africa doubtless brought with them in the
first instance the worship of Memnon or Mahiman from the Asiatic Cushadwip ; yet they seem also to have kept up a considerable intercourse with
their oriental brethren, subsequent to their settlement in the Ethiopia of
modern geography. The intercourse was probably carried on, either directly
by the Erythrean ocean, or through the medium of the Arabian Cushim.
Hence we may trace the origin of a singular discordance respecting the
1 The settlement of African Ethiopia will be discussed hereafter.

V. 6.(1.)
Vide infra b. vi. c. 5.
463
features and complexion of Buddha in the east, which perfectly resembles

a similar discordance respecting those of Memnon in the west.
Buddha, Jain, or Mahiman, is perpetually represented by his oriental
worshippers with the complexion, the features, and the crisped hair, of an
African negro.1 Yet this mode of exhibiting him, however common, is by
no means universal.
Sometimes he is represented with a yellow com
plexion, and sometimes with a complexion white and ruddy : sometimes his
hair is straight but formed into neat plaits, and sometimes he appears
without any hair.
I think it evident, that these different modes of exhibiting
him have been borrowed from the different tribes, among which his worship
prevailed. Sir William Jones rightly observes, that the white and ruddy
complexion of Buddha is that of the Tatars, who lie more towards the
north than his Indian votaries : but I doubt, whether we are warranted in
adopting his inference from thence, that Buddha, whom (so far as I can
judge) he erroneously calls the last great legislator and god of the cast, was
a Tatar. The inference might have been valid, had Buddha been univer
sally represented with such a complexion ; for it seems to have been very
much the humour of idolaters to depict their gods like themselves. But
this, as we have recently observed, is by no means the case : and, accord
ingly, others have argued just as strenuously, and just as unsatisfactorily,
that Buddha must have been an Egyptian or Ethiopian ; because his com
plexion is black, his hair woolly, and his features and dress Ethiopic in ap
pearance. What such variations really prove, is this, and certainly no more
than this : that the worship of Buddha has prevailed in different countries,
the natives of which resemble the several modes of exhibiting the god ; and
that India and Cashgar have from time immemorial been the centrical point
of intercourse for his widely extended followers. Hence originated these
varieties. The Tatars, and the many wandering tribes to the utmost north
ern limits of Siberia, were votaries of Buddha : and his worship was
equally imported by the Indo-Scythic or Shepherd kings into Egypt and
African Ethiopia.
We may therefore be tolerably sure, that the two directly
opposite modes of representing the god have been borrowed from Tatary
See Plate II. Fig. 3.
464
THK OKI0IN OF PAGAN IDOLATRY.
and Africa : and, I think, we may be equally sure, that the intermediate
mode has been taken from nations inhabiting intermediate degrees of lati
tude. Of these the complexions are yellow or tawney, and the hair is long
and straight. Some of them, as the Chinese, shave the head except a single
braid pendent from behind : and we may add, that, in the days of Hero
dotus, the Egyptians, both priests and laity, wore the hair so closely shorn,
that, had they been represented by the statuary, they must have appeared
bald.1 The very great antiquity of the worship of Buddha seems to me to
be decidedly proved, in opposition to those who would ascribe a compara
tively late origin to it, by the circumstance of the intercourse between
African Ethiopia and Hindostan having long been suspended and apparently
forgotten.
The Brahmens attribute, and (I believe) with truth, those an
cient statues, which have the hair and features of negroes, to the Buddhists :
but, as they highly venerate Buddha, though they esteem his votaries he
retics, they are not a little offended, whenever this resemblance to the Afri
can race is pointed out. Nor are they peculiar in thus expressing their
abhorrence of such a surmise, which might perhaps be accounted for on
the ground of their being Brahmenists in contradistinction to Buddhists :
for the decided Buddhists of Ceylon perfectly agree with them in this par
ticular. When the crisped hair of their god was pointed out to them by Mr.
Mackenzie, with an inquiry whether it was meant to represent the hair of
an Abyssinian, the priests answered in the negative with abhorrence ; and
attempted to account for its peculiar appearance by saying, that it was de
signed to exhibit the hair of Buddha after he had cut it short with a golden
sword. .But, as Mr. Wilford justly remarks, no evasions respecting the
hair will account for the thick lips and flat noses of many of the ancient
statues which occur in Hindostan ; for these are clearly the well-known
features of the genuine African Ethiopian. At the same time, for the rea
sons above given, I can see no solid grounds for his inference, that a race
of negroes had formerly the preeminence in that country. The resem
blance, which he mentions as subsisting between that race and some of the
' Herod. Hist. lib. ii. c. 36. Accordingly, the priest of the tauric Osiris sometimes is ac
tually delineated as bald. See a print in Bryant's Anal. vol. ii.p. 432.
465
Indian mountaineers even to this day, cannot, I think, establish his opinion,
that Hindostan was once subject to the sceptre of the Ethiopians of Africa.
Since the Chasas and those Ethiopians were of common origin, and since
(as the classical writers tell us) they resembled each other in every thing
but their hair and dialect ; since moreover the supposed ancient intercourse
between them would both produce many emigrations, and bring into India
Buddhic statues with African hair and features : the similarity mentioned by
Mr. Wilford may easily be accounted for, without having recourse to the
hypothesis, that the Scythian warriors, who subdued Egypt, and who pene
trated southward into Ethiopia, afterwards turned their arms eastward and
subjugated the land of their ancestors. That this must be the order of
events, if any such invasion took place, is certain from the testimony of
history : for the ancestors of the African Ethiopians migrated from the
Asiatic Ethiopia ; and, passing through Egypt which they once held in sub
jection, established themselves in the torrid region, which, until their arrival,
was not known by the name of Ethiopia. Nay more: their descendants
must have remained under the burning sun long enough to acquire the negro
aspect, before they returned and conquered their native country, for that
aspect they could have inherited but partially from their Indo-Scythic fore
fathers ; and yet such is the precise aspect, which is so frequently exhibited
by the oriental statues of Buddha. On the whole, I arrive, though by a
different course, at the conclusion of Sir William Jones, rather than that
of Mr. Wilford. Though I see no sufficient proof for believing, that India
was ever conquered by the Ethiopians of Africa; yet it is clear, both that the
Chasas and the western Ethiopians were of the same great family, and that
much intercourse must have subsisted between them at a very remote
period.1
The same variety of opinions respecting the complexion of Memnon pre
vailed in the west.
Virgil, who was a profound mythologist as well as a great poet, expressly
tells us, that Memnon was a negro ; though, like Djodorus, he brings him
' See Asiat. Res. vol. i. p. 427. vol. ii. p. 32, 122. vol. iii. p. 122, 198. vol. vi. p. 452.
vol. vii. p. 422, 423.
Pag. Idol.
vol. ii.
3 N
466
THK ORIGIN Off PAGAN IDOLATRY.
from the regions of the east.1 What Philostratus says appears to intimate
the same, though his testimony is not equally decisive. He informs us,
that the vocal statue was of black stone ; and he further mentions a notion
which prevailed, that Memnon himself was metamorphosed into a stone of
that colour.* I call this testimony less decisive, because a massy black
stone was the symbol of Buddha or Mercury apparently without any refer
ence to his complexion : so that the supposed metamorphosis of Memnon,
though it strongly tends to prove the point for which I am generally con
tending, namely that that hero is the same as Buddha or Mahiman, will
not perhaps equally prove that he was esteemed a negro. Yet the colour
of his vocal statue being black, like many images of Buddha in the east,
seems to shew what complexion was ascribed to Memnon himself. I think
we may also collect that his hair was crisped from a passage in Philostratus,
which singularly resembles the legend of the Buddhic priests already no
ticed. They account, as we have seen, for the crisped hair of their deity
by saying, that he once cut it off with a golden sword, and that the statues
repre sent it as it appeared after that operation. In a similar manner, Phi
lostratus tells us, that Memnon cut off his hair as a votive offering to the
god Nilus. Yet an opinion prevailed, that he was also of a fair complexion
and that his person was singularly handsome. This is mentioned by Eustathius, who informs us, that, although he was an Ethiopian by birth, his.
skin was white : and he adds, that he alone of all the Ethiopians was thus
distinguished.' The discrepancy resembles that respecting the complexion
of Buddha : and, as I believe it to have originated from the same source,
it ought, I think, to be accounted for in the same manner.
(3.) With respect to Osymandyas or Ismandes, whom we have seen to be
the same as Memnon, he is likewise so much the counterpart to Sesostris,
that I am greatly inclined to consider them as one person, and thence se
verally to identify them with Buddha.
Both Osymandyas and Sesostris are described as conquerors, who pene
trated to almost every part of the habitable world, and yet whose exploits
1 ^neid. Kb. i. ver. 493.
' Eustath. in Dion. Perieg. ver. 248.
* Philost. in vit. Apoll. Tyan. lib. i. c, 4.

can only be referred consistently to the age of fable.
467
In this part of their C,MF- v-
character they closely resemble Buddha, who similarly travelled over the
whole earth, leaving in every country where he reposed himself the print of
his gigantic foot. The conquests of Osymandyas and Sesostris are the very
same with regard to the regions over which they extend. Each subdues the
whole of Asia : each penetrates far eastward into the country of the Chasas
or Indo-Scythte : each upbraids the effeminacy of the enemies, whom he
vanquishes, in a manner nearly similar : and the prowess ef each is cele
brated almost by the same inscription.1
(4.) The statues of Osymandyas and his supposed mother form the same
duad, as the two colossal statues described by Norden near the palace of
Memnon, and as the vocal statue of Memnon himself and its gigantic asso
ciate which Strabo mentions as being close by its side. On these pairs of
statues, which represent a male and a female, I have already remarked, that
from their decided resemblance to each other we may safely conclude, that,
what the one pair was intended to describe, the others were also intended to
describe. Now, from a retrospective view of the whole that has been said
concerning Memnon, there can scarcely, I think, be a doubt, that each
pair was designed to exhibit the great father and the great mother ; that is
to say, Mahiman and Mahamania, or Buddha and I la.
This opinion is confirmed by the character, which Diodorus gives of the
pretended mother of Osymandyas : he says, that she was celebrated, as the
parent, the wife, and the daughter, of a king. Such was Ida, the mother
of Memnon, the daughter of Teutamus, and the consort of Tithonus ; whom
I have shewn to be all one and the same character, namely Teut, or Mahi
man, or Buddha. The description is precisely that of the great arkite mo
ther, according to the different degrees of relationship, in which she was
supposed by the allegorizing genius of ancient mythology to 6tand to the
diluvian patriarch. He was that universal sovereign so famed in every na
tion, as being indifferently the father, the son, and the husband, of a myste
rious female, whose history is ever found more or less to be connected with
, Diod. Bibl. lib. i. p. 44, 45, 4851.
vol. vi. p. 455.
Herod. Hit. lib. ii. c. 102105. Asiat. Res.
468
THE ORIGIN OF PAGAN IDOLATKY.
' a ship and a tradition of a deluge : and from this complicated relationship
originated, as I have often remarked, those numerous fables which we meet
with in the mythology of the Gentiles respecting certain incestuous connections
and alliances. The god and goddess thus associated were the most ancient
Cabiri, who were but two in number, and whose joint veneration occurs in
every region of the globe. The character of the great arkite mother blends
itself with those of the Earth and the Moon, as that of the great father does
with Heaven and the Sun. Varro accordingly enumerates many of these
pairs, which he rightly pronounces to be fundamentally the same. He tells
us, that the most ancient gods were Ccelus and Terra, or, as the Greeks
called them, Uranus and Ge or Gaia ; that is to say, the Cailas or Arhan,
and the Ida or Ila or Gaya, of the Chasas and Hindoos. He states, that
these were the great polyonymous deities, whose worship formed the basis
of the Cabiric Mysteries of Samothrace : and he adds, that they were the
same as the Serapis and Isis of Egypt, the Tautes and Astarte of the Phenicians, and the Saturn and Ops of the old Etruscan Latins.1
The Indo-Scythae delighted to represent them by stupendous colossal
images : nor can we be surprized to find such statues occur in oriental
Ethiopia, when we recollect that the framers of those images in the Thebais, which we are now considering, were themselves a colony from the
eastern Cusha-dwip. Of these I may mention the two colossal statues of
Gomat-Eswar or Jain highly revered by his votaries in different parts of
India : one of them, thirty eight feet in height ; and the other, eighteen
times the height of a man.1 I may also mention two of vast dimensions in
Japan, the one at Dabis, and the other at Meaco, representing Xaca and
Amida, that is to say, Buddha and Mahiman : the chair alone, upon which
the larger of these sits (for they are both, like Memnon, in a sitting posture),
is seventy feet high and eighty wide.' Nor must I omit the image of DaiBod or the god Buddh, also in a Japanese temple ; the bulk of which is so
stupendous, that, according to Kaempfer, three mats may lie conveniently in
the palm of its hand. He describes it, as sitting cross-legged on a Tarate
1 Varr. de ling. Latin, lib. iv. p. 17.
' Bryant's Anal. vol. iii. p. 56$, 570.
1 Asiat. Res. vol. ix. p. 256, 285,
469
flower which I take to be a species of the aquatic lotos, and as having the
hair short and carled.1 I may likewise notice the colossus of Kiakiack or
Sacya in Pegu, which represents a man sleeping in a recumbent posture,
and which is no less than sixty feet in length.*
But all these are single statues, designed to exhibit Buddha or the great
father : nor does it appear, that a second female statue is added to any of
them, as is the case with the Memnonian images in the Thebais. At Bamayan however, which is the holy city of the Buddhic Chasas, and which
Mr. Wilford justly calls the Thebes of the east, there are two colossal statues
close to each other, which perfectly accord with the duplicated images of
Egypt. From their magnitude they are seen at a considerable distance.
Their posture is erect ; and they adhere to the mountain, out of which they
have been hewn. They stand in a sort of niches, the depth of which is
equal to the thickness of the statues : and their true height, much as their
size has been exaggerated, is yet allowed to be fifty cubits or seventy five
feet. It -seems, that the natives, and the Persian authors who have men
tioned them, agree neither about their sex nor their names. The Hindoos,
who live in their vicinity, say, that they represent Bliirn and his consort :
while the followers of Buddha assert, that they are the images of Shahama
or Samana and his disciple Salsala. The Mussulmans insist, that they are
Key-Umursh and his consort, or Adam and Eve : and they pretend, that a
third smaller statue, which stands at some distance from them, is their son
Seth ; whose tomb, or at least the place where it formerly stood, is shewn
near Bahlac. According to the author of the Pharangh-Jehanghiri, they are
as old as the days of Noah : and he supposes the third to represent an an
cient woman called Nesr, who is more generally depicted with the coun
tenance of a vulture. They are at present so much defaced, partly by time,
and partly by the iconoclast zeal of the Musulmans, that it is difficult to
ascertain their sex, yet perhaps not altogether impossible. Travellers agree,
that one of them at least is a beardless youth : and some particularly insist,
that the swelling of the breasts is remarkably obvious. They both look to
wards the east : whence there prevails a wildly romantic opinion, that they
' Ksempfcr's Japan, vol. ii. p. 553.
* Bryant's Anal. vol. iii. p. 558.
470
smile at sunrise, but that a terrific gloom overcasts their features in the
evening. Mr. Wilford did not view them himself: but the account, which
he received from a well-informed and opulent Mohammedan who had vi
sited them at least ten or twelve different times, seems positively to deter
mine', that the one is a male, and the other a female. The information com
municated by him was, that the two statues are in two different niches,
about forty paces distant from each other : that the drapery is covered with
embroidery and figured work formerly painted of different colours, traces of
which are still visible : that the one appears to have been painted of a red
colour ; and that the other either retains the original hue of the stone, or
was painted grey : that one of them certainly represents a female, from
the beauty and smoothness of the features and the swelling of the breasts :
that the statue of their supposed son is nearly half a mile distant and about
twenty feet high : and that between the legs of the male figure there is a
door leading into a temple of extraordinary dimensions, but dark and
gloomy.1
It is impossible, I think, not to be struck with the palpable resemblance
between this description, and that which Diodorus gives of the statues of
Osymandyas and his mother. In both, we have a colossal male and fe
male : and, in both, these statues guard, as it were, the entrance into the
temple. Diodorus indeed calls the building behind the two images a tomb
or monument : but I have little doubt, that it was in reality a place of wor
ship, and that the notion of its being a tomb originated much in the same
manner as the similar notion respecting the temples of Buddha and the py
ramids of Egypt, which are clearly what the Hindoos call pagodas. The
rock-temple at Bamayan, to which the access is by a door between the legs
of the male colossus, is certainly no other than a Mithratic grotto : and I
believe, that the temple behind Osymandyas, and the gloomy chamber
which has been discovered in the heart of the great pyramid, were con
structed with a similar idea and for similar theological purposes. They
were all and each of them devoted to the celebration of the ancient Mys
teries ; which scenically exhibited the death of the great father, his inclosure
1 AsiaL Res. vol. vi. p. 464466.
THE ORIGIN Of PAGAN IDOLATRY.
471
within an ark or coffin, his descent into the infernal regions, and his subse- CHAf- v.
quent revival or regeneration. Hence arose the very old opinion, though an
opinion which may be proved to be wholly without foundation, that the py
ramids were literally tombs of certain literal Egyptian kings : and hence
similarly originated the idea, that the temple behind the statues of Osymandyas and his mother, was his monument or place of sepulture. With
respect to the two images at Bamayan, which were constructed by the
oriental branch of the wonderful people that formed the several pairs of sta
tues in Egypt, I have no doubt of their being designed to represent Saman
and his consort, that is to say, Buddha and Ida, or Mahiman and Mahamania : and the third I am strongly inclined to consider as the effigies of
Typhon or Hayagriva. A close resemblance between certain mythological
appellations and the names of the most early patriarchs that are mentioned
in Scripture seems in various instances to have given rise to a not unna
tural misprision of terms. Thus, because the Canaanites and other eastern
nations worshipped the solar arkite god under the name of Abel or Abellion
which means father Bel, an imaginary tomb of Abel the brother of Cain
is shewn in the land of Palestine.1 And thus, in several cases, because the
Egyptians called Typhon Seth, the patriarch has been confounded with the
demon-god. Hence I suspect, that the third statue, traditionally said to
be the image of Seth the son of Adam, was really the image of Seth or
Typhon ; that Seth, whose children or votaries are mentioned in the pro
phecy of Balaam, who was the same as Baal-Peor, and who was sometimes
also identified with Osiris because water was esteemed one of the forms of
the pantheistic diluvian god.* This opinion is confirmed by the circum
stance of the masculine name Seth or Sida being actually used by the IndoScythee of the east, no less than by the Pallic shepherds of the west. Siva,
1 See Maundrell's Journey, p. 133, 134. He describes the supposed tomb as an ancient
structure on the top of a high hill, thirty yards in length. It was traditionally thought to
be proportioned to the size of Abel. This account does not require much comment. The
tomb on the top of the hill was a high-plaee of the gigantic Buddha, or Mahiman, or father
Belus; and the god was most probably there exhibited, as in many parallel instances which
occur throughout the east, under the form of a colossus wrapt in a deathlike sleep.
* Numb. xx\v. 17.
472
,V.
the mariner of the ship Argha, is frequently styled Sida-Siva :
while the
feminine form of the word, Sita or Seta or Setha, is one of the appellations
of his consort Parvati, who at the time of the deluge metamorphosed herself
into that celebrated vessel.'
Mr. Wilford remarks, that the dress of the statues at Barnayan, as it was
described to him, is much the same as that of the two figures, half buried at
Tuct-Rustum near Istachar in Persia. There is however this difference,
that the female figure has no head-dress ; but the male has such a tiara, as
is worn by the supposed female figure at Tuct-Rustum.1 Here then we have
another pair of similar statues, male and female ; and in a region likewise,
where the worship of Buddha was early established by a branch of the
Chasas or Cuthites : we have them, in short, in the very country of those
eastern Ethiopians ; who, equally with the Ethiopians of Africa, laid claim
to Memnon, and produced as much circumstantial evidence of his having
resided at Susa.
(5.) Nearly allied to these statues, though not absolutely the same, are
the pillars, which Sesostris was said to have erected in the various countries
that he subdued. That such ancient monuments actually existed, cannot be
disputed ; for Herodotus declares, that he had himself seen them : but,
whether they were erected by a literal king of Egypt named Sesostris, is
quite another question. They were marked in a manner which designated
them to be, some male and some female : and they evidently appear to have
been phallic Hermas ; for the tale, by which the Greeks accounted for their
being so marked, is unworthy of serious confutation. Herodotus particularly
mentions two of them, each hewn out of a rock : one was in the road from
Ephesus to Phocea, and the other was between Sardis and Smyrna. They
were but of small dimensions : and both of them represented the figure of a
man, holding a spear in his right hand and a bow in his left, and armed
partly after the Egyptian and partly after the Ethiopic fashion. He adds,
that across the breast, traced from shoulder to shoulder, there was an inscrip
tion in the sacred characters of Egypt to the following effect; By the force
of my arms I subdued this country. The historian acknowledges, that there
1 Mojr's Hind. Punth. p. 41.
473
was great uncertainty respecting the person thus represented : and he tells us,
though he peremptorily rejects their opinion, that some asserted these statues
to have been designed for Memnon.1 I suspect however, that, although he
is right in pronouncing them to be representations of Sesostris, he is far too
hasty in rejecting the tradition that Memnon was the subject of them : for I
think there are strong reasons for believing, that Osymandyas, Ismandes,
Sesostris, and Memnon, are all one person.
If we inquire into the period when Sesostris is supposed to have reigned,
we shall find a discrepancy of many generations between the accounts given
by Herodotus and Diodorus : and, if we further pursue our investigation,
we shall be brought into the mythologic age of the fabulous first kings of
Egypt and the sacred ship Argo. Eusebius tells us, that after Vulcan reigned
the Sun, then Sosis, then Osiris, then Horus, then Thules who conquered
the whole world, and then Sesostris ; who yet is represented as having again
conquered the world, though it was already subdued by his immediate pre
decessor.* The scholiast upon Apollonius omits Thules, who is evidently
the same person as Sesostris ; and places that hero under the name of Sesonchosis next in succession to Horus, telling us that Sesonchosis was he whom
Theopompus calls Sesostris.1 Josephus informs us from Manetho, that
Sesostris, whom he denominates Sethosis as Diodorus styles him Sethoosis,
was the same as Ramesses and Egyptus ; and he adds, that he was the bro
ther of Danaus or Armais, who was reputed to be the first navigator of the
ship Argo.4 The author of the Paschal Chronicle says, that Sesostris was
the earliest king of the family of Cham or Ham that reigned in Egypt.5
And John of Antioch adds to this particular, that he was contemporary with
Hermes or Thoth* These various testimonies sufficiently point out the real
character of Sesostris, between whom and the scriptural Sesac I can scarcely
discover even a shadow of resemblance. He is the same at once as Buddha
and as Danaus : for mythological genealogies perpetually represent one person
in the different lights of father, brother, and son. Hence he is called
Ramesses or Ram-Esa: which is a Buddhic title, the same in substance as
' Diod. Bibl. lib. i. p. 50, 51. Herod. Hist. lib. ii. c. 102, 106".
* Euseb. Cbron. p. 73 Schol. in Apoll. Argon, lib. iv. ver. 27?.
* Joseph, cont. Apion. lib. i. c. 15.
5 Chron. Pasch. p. 48.
6 Johan. Antioch. Oper. p. 28.
Pag. Idol.
vol. ii.
3 0
474
THIS OK1G1N Of PAGAN IDOLATRY.
Bal-Rama; and which was brought by the Shepherd-kings into Egypt, as we

may collect from its being the name of one of the cities that the Israelites
were constrained to build by the tyranny of those intruders. ' Hence also,
considered as Danaus, he is denominated Armais : which is the same title
as the Greek Hermes and the Hindoo Hermaya : and thus he is exhibited
to us, as the navigator of the ship Argo or Argha. Hence moreover he is
declared to be contemporary with Hermes or Thoth, and is described as the
first Egyptian king of the line of Ham, which is equivalent to his being re
presented as the earliest sovereign of the country. And hence he is pro
nounced to belong to the same dynasty, as those clearly mythological princes
whom the Egyptians venerated as gods ; namely Vulcan or Phtha, Helius,
Sothis or Thoth, Osiris, and Horus. He is, in short, the same as Thoth or
Hermes : and both his name, and the various particulars related of him,
perfectly accord with this supposition. Sethosis or Seso'dsis is evidently in a
compound form the title Sosis, which occurs in the fabulous dynasty between
Helius and Osiris; and Sosis is Sos-Isa or Thoth- Isa : we may venture
therefore to conclude, that Sethosis is Se-Thoth-Isa or the illustrious ThothIsa. This conclusion is warranted by his being declared to be contemporary
with Hermes, and by his being placed in the same list with Vulcan, Helius,
and Osiris.
It is also warranted by his being identified with Ramesses or
Ram-Esa, and by his being ascribed to the age of the ship Argo.* His history
accords with his name. The various remote conquests, which he is said to
have made, aie but a repetition of the travels of Buddha and Cronus, and of
the military exploits of Hercules and Osiris and Thules and Bacchus and
Deo-Naush. The pillars, which he erects as marking the boundaries of his
progress, are no other than the Hermas or Buddhic columns which make so
conspicuous a figure in old mythology : they are the same as the pillars of
Hercules and Bacchus, which occur both far to the west and far to the east;
for Hercules, Bali, Sesostris, and Buddha, are all one person; and, though
Bacchus seems properly to belong to another system of mythology, yet both
those systems are closely blended and connected together, and Bacchus and
Osiris, as well as Buddha and Hercules, are ultimately the same great
transmigrating patriarch.
' Exod. I. 11. xii. 37.
The age, in which he is placed, is that of Thoth,

* Tzetz. in Lycoph. vcr. 1206.
THE ORIGIN OV PAGAN IDOLATRY.

Danaus,
475
and the Argo ; in other words, it is the age of the deluge and the
Ark : and, accordingly, we find, that he is said to have been the son of the
heifer-goddess Theha; for he is declared to be the same as Ra messes and
Egyptus ; and Egyptus and his Argonautic brother Danaus were the children
of Theba, who is truly represented as flourishing at the period of Deucalion's
flood.1 Such being his place among the ancient kings of Egypt, we may
naturally expect to find him, like Thoth, Vulcan, and Pan, connected with
the primitive eight gods, whose prototypes are doubtless the eight persons
preserved in the Ark : and I think, that Herodotus, though undesignedly,
gives us much reason to believe that this was the case. He represents him
and his queen as being the parents of six children, and consequently makes
him the head of an ogdoad : and he relates a story respecting a plot formed
against him by his brother, which I suspect to have originated from the same
source as the fable of Typhon's machinations against his brother Osiris.*
Now, when we consider that Sesostris belongs to the age of Theba, Argo,
Thoth, Osiris, Inachus, and Deucalion ; we can scarcely, I think, hesitate
as to the interpretation of the ogdoad over which he presides.
It is a curious circumstance, that, just as some pronounced the statues in
Ionia to be statues of Memnon, which Herodotus contends to have been
statues of Sesostris ; so that vocal statue in the Thebais, which is almost
universally said to have been a representation of Memnon, was yet, accord
ing to Pausanias, sometimes thought to have been an image either of Sesostris
or Phamenophis.1 These coincidences were not the effect of pure accident :
the different accounts were, I believe, perfectly right, though apparently
discordant ; for all the statues were equally representations of Sesostris and
Memnon, of Osymandyas and Buddha. One and the same person under
various names was the subject of them all, in whatever part of the world
they occur. Hence we find Memnon carried back exactly to the same age
1 The pretended voyage of Danaus to Greece in the ship Argo means very evidently the
importation of the worship of Danau and the sacred ship. Thefact seems to have occurred at
the era of the final expulsion of the Shepherds from Egypt : but the character Danaus was no
man of that period ; he was the deified hero of the Ark, and his votaries were from him
called Danauas or Danai. Vide infra book vi. c. 5. J VI. 1.
1 Herod. Hist. lib. ii. c. 107.
1 Pausan. Attic, p. 78.
CM/IP- T,
476
Hook iv.
as that in which Sesostris is placed.
If the latter be ascribed to the period
of Argo, Theba, and Deucalion ; and if he be placed at the head of a family

consisting exactly of eight persons : the former, notwithstanding his exploits
at the siege of Troy, is yet said in the Great Chronicle to have been one,
and indeed the first, of the great gods of Egypt.1 He was therefore the
associate of Pan, and Thoth, and Vulcan, and Osiris : in other words, he
was the principal Cabiric deity. Thus thrown back to the epoch of the
deluge, we find him described as the original inventor of the alphabet; an
invention also given to Buddha and Hermes, an invention likewise for a
share of which Cadmus puts in his claim.* In this there is no real rivality :
the apparently contending claims may be easily reconciled : Buddha, Hermes,
Cadmus, and Memnon, are all one person.
(6.) A single particular yet remains to be noticed in the fabulous history of
Memnon : I mean the curious legend relative to the birds, which first fought
over his funeral pile, and which afterwards annually renewed their combat
in honour of the deceased hero. This mysterious transaction occurred in
Troas : but it likewise occurred in African Ethiopia, only with the difference
that there the combat took place only every fifth year. There was also a
notion, that, besides their annual fight in Troas, they every year made
their appearance on one particular day, and cleansed a space of ground
about the tomb of Memnon, suffering neither shrubs nor weeds to grow there,
and afterwards watering it with their wings which they dipped in the river
Esopus. Such, according to Pausanias, was the account given by those
who inhabited the shores of the Hellespont : and Elian informs us, that the
birds were black, that they were shaped like hawks, and that they came
every autumn from Cyzicus on the Propontis.'
Actions like these are evidently the actions, not of birds, but of men :
and, since the same ceremonies also took place in Ethiopia, we may both be
sure that men were the agents, and we may perhaps find it not impossible to
throw some light on the nature of what they did.
The theology of the ancient Babylonic Cuthites or Scythians dealt much in
s-ymbols or hieroglyphics, partly arbitrary, and partly borrowed from the
' Chron. Magn. apud Banier's Mytfaol. vol. i. p. 493.
1 Anticlid. apud Plin. lib. vii. c 56.
3 Pausan. Phoc. p. 6&S. Êlian. de animal, lib. v.
THE OKICIN OF I,AGAN IDOLATRY.
477
histories of the creation and the deluge. Hence originated the sacred animals
of Egypt, Persia, India, and Assyria. Among birds, the raven, the dove,
the eagle, and the hawk, were highly venerated : among beasts, the lion,
the bull, the horse, the goat, and the dog : among insects, the bee and
the butterfly : among fishes and reptiles, the cetus and the serpent. I
mention these as a few only among many : for such was the propensity
of the old Cuthic idolaters to bestial symbolization, in the understanding
of which their boasted wisdom largely consisted, that the language of the
prophet is no poetical exaggeration, when he represents himself as
beholding ina Mithratic cell every form of creeping things and abominable
beasts.1 Now these animals, in most instances, seem at once to have
represented the deity and his priests: for, as the priests called themselves
by the name of the god whom they worshipped, so they appropriated to
themselves the peculiar emblems by which he was designated. Thus the
name of the Assyrian Venus was Mylitta or Melissa, and her symbol
appears to have been a bee. Hence the word Melitta came to signify
that insect, though it properly denotes the female principle of generation :
and hence her priestesses were called Melissce or bees ; which gave rise to
the story of Jupiter being nourished in his infancy by bees, and to various
other fictions of a similar description. Thus likewise the symbol of Mithras
or Horus was the lion. Hence the priests of Mithras were called by the
name of that animal. Exactly in the same manner we find priests described
as dogs, swine, and ravens ; and priestesses assuming the appellation of
doves. Of this last we have a very curious elucidation given us by Herodo
tus. The priestesses of Dodona, it seems, asserted, that two black doves
once flew from Egyptian Thebes ; of which the one took up its abode in
Africa, while the other settled with themselves. The latter perched on a
beech-tree ; and declared it to be the will of Jupiter, that an oracle should
be there established. The former, which flew into Africa, similarly enjoined
the inhabitants of that country to establish another oracle ; and this was that
of Jupiter-Ammon. Such was the narrative of the Dodonean priestesses;
and it was fully explained to Herodotus in the literal account of the same
transaction given by the priests of the Theban Jupiter. These told him,
that two priestesses were carried off from Thebes by the Phenicians ; that
* Ezek. viii. 10.
478
book iv.
THE ORIGIN QV PAGAN IDOLATKY.
one of them was sold into Greece, and the other into Africa ; and that to
them the foundation of the two oracles was to be ascribed.1 The pretended
doves then were priestesses ; and they were said to be black, because such
was the colour of the two Egyptian or Ethiopia females.
This relation will lead us to the right understanding of what is meant by
the Memnonian birds. They were priests, who in one region annually, and
in another quinquennially, performed certain rites at the pretended tomb of
Memnon. This tomb was his high-place : accordingly, Elian tells us, that in
Troas it was on the top of a mountain : and the notion of its being a tomb
originated from the same cause, as the similar notion respecting the pyramids
and the vast building behind the statue of Osymandyas. Doubtless what
the psalmist calls the offerings of the dead formed a part of the worship of
Memnon, no less than of Baal-Peor, Adonis, and Osiris. Since his death
was regularly bewailed at certain stated seasons ; the edifice, where such
lamentations took place, was supposed to be his tomb. They were the same
as those over the slain or lost Osiris : and they were performed at the very
same season of the year, as one of the two Egyptian festivals which com
memorated the entrance of Osiris into the ark and into the Moon ; for Elian
says, that the birds came from Cyzicus to Troas every autumn. The birds
themselves were, it seems, of a black colour, like the two doves or priestesses
that established the oracles of Dodona and Jupiter-Ammon : and the reason
for this opinion was, I believe, the same in both cases. The sacerdotal
birds of Ethiopia were of a black complexion : and it is probable, that those
of Cyzicus imitated it, either by staining their skins or by arraying themselves
in black robes. I am also much inclined to believe, that the priests and
priestesses, who assumed the names and characters of the sacred animals,
actually imitated, as far as might be, their figures by means of certain
masks or vizors made of light wood or pasteboard : at least, it is not difficult
to give plausible reasons for such a conjecture. Plutarch expressly tells us,
that both the hawk and the bull were sacred to Osiris ; as the ass, the cro
codile, and the hippopotamus, were to Typhon ; and the dog, to Anubis.*
Now, in that curious relic of Egyptian antiquity, the Bembine or Isiac
table, various semi-human figures occur in attitudes of adoration before the
* Herod. Hist. lib. ii. c. 54, 55.
* Plut. de Isid.
479
bestial deities of Cuthic superstition. Among these are two ; the one with
the head of an ibis, the other with that of a hawk : the first worships the
sacred bull ; the second, the mystic scarabeus. The figures thus disguised
therefore are certainly priests : and I think it very likely, that the mode in
which they were thus disguised was by vizors. They strongly resemble the
mummers of the ancient pageants in the middle ages : and it is not improba
ble, that the disguises assumed by those buffoons were borrowed from the
obsolete superstition of our Scythian ancestors.1 The canine phantoms of
the Mysteries, mentioned by Pletho and Psellus, and alluded to by Virgil,
seem to have been officiating ministers decorated with the heads of dogs :
and I take them to be nearly allied to the cynocephali or dog-headed priests
of Thoth or Anubis, of whom there was a whole college in upper Egypt.
The black hawks of Cyzicus then were certainly priests of Memnon : and,
while they officiated, they probably wore vizors imitating the heads of hawks,
like the priests who appear in the Bembine table.
But still the question will be, what we are to understand by the bloody
battles, which they are represented as annually or quinquennially fighting in
honour of their deity. A very moderate acquaintance with the rites of pagan
superstition will be sufficient to afford an answer to this question.
The priests, in the worship of their gods were wont to work themselves
up to a sort of phrenzy.
While in this state, they sometimes mutilated them
selves, as at the time of their dedication to the service of Bellona, Cybele,

and Attis ; sometimes gashed themselves with knives, as in the contest of
the priests of Baal with Elijah ; and sometimes devoted themselves to certain
death, as is still the case in the bloody suicidal adoration of Jagan-Nath
who is propitiated by his votaries madly throwing themselves beneath the
rolling wheels of his ponderous car. Of such a nature, I apprehend, was
the worship of Memnon, who in fact was the very same deity as Buddha
and Jagan-Nath. His disguised priests first wound themselves up to a high
1 Mr. Strutt, in his work on the ancient pastimes of the English, gives a print of these
mummers; in which they appear with the heads of dogs, birds, bulls, and lions, in a manner
closely resembling the figures on the Bembine table and agreeably to what I conjecture the
disguises of the priests to have been. Such pageants were fashionable so late as the days of
Elisabeth : and Shakespeare faithfully paints the manners of the times in terrifying his Si/
John Falstaff with a group of these fantastic apparitions. See the merry wives of Windsor.
cHAr. v.
480
,
THE ORIGIN OF PAGAN IDOLATItr.
pitch of religious enthusiasm ; and then turned their arms against each other,
until many perished in the furious contest. Scripture is full of allusions to
the practice of cutting the flesh with knives ; a superstitious abomination,
which it strictly prohibits to the priests of Jehovah : and Herodotus has
preserved an account of an Egyptian ceremony, which perfectly resembles
the battle of Memnon's hawk-priests ; or rather which is the same rite, for
Memnon and Mars are one deity. He tells us, that, during the festival of
Mars which was celebrated at Papremis, and towards the close of the day,
a small number of priests were accustomed to arrange themselves as attendants
upon the statue of the god. Meanwhile a greater number, armed with
clubs, planted themselves at the door of the temple. Opposite to them
might be seen at least a thousand men, also with clubs in their hands,
tumultuously assembled to discharge the vows by which they were bound.
These preparations being completed, the attendant ministers of the deitv
placed his gold-enshrined image on a four-wheeled carriage, and began to
draw it along. Those, who were stationed at the door of the temple, endea
voured to prevent its entrance : but the others, who were under the obligation
of vows, immediately rushed forward to the assistance of the god. Upon
this, a furious battle took place between the opposite parties : and many indi
viduals never failed to have at least their heads broken in the scuffle. Hero
dotus supposes, reasonably enough from the nature and obstinacy of the
conflict, that several lives must also be lost : he adds however, that the
Egyptians positively denied any such fatal consequences.1 It seems to me
sufficiently evident from the preceding account of the Egyptian Mars, that
he is the same as the Indian Jagan-Nath ; who may be identified with
Buddha, and consequently with Memnon. The mode, in which he was
solemnly drawn in his car on the high day of his festival, and the bloody
rites attendant upon his worship though they differ in some respects from
those of Jagan-Nath, bear on the whole too close a resemblance to the
horrid manner, in which the Orissan deity is venerated, to leave us much
reason to doubt of their common original. In fact, the sole difference between
the two is this: the votaries of Jagan-Nath throw themselves beneath the
Herod. Hist. lib. ii.e. 63,
481
wheels of his huge car, and propitiate their god by a voluntary suicide; the Ciaf. v.
worshippers of Mars attended upon his image, as the sacred car similarly
bore it along in solemn procession, and honoured him, like the hawk-priests
of Memnon, by shedding their blood in furious conflicts.1
* The reader may see the terrific worship of Jagan-Nath amply described by an eye-witness
in Dr. Buchanan's Christian Researches in Asia.
Pag. Idol.
vOL. II.
CHAPTER VI.
Respecting the union of the two great superstitions in the wor

ship of Jagan-Nath, Saturn, and Baal.
TThough the ancient idolaters were early divided into two great sects,
they differed rather in the mode, than in the object, of their worship. The
various gods both of the Buddhic and of the Bacchic superstitions were ulti
mately one and the same person : and that person was the transmigrating
great father, who, under different names, was alike venerated by each party.
Such being the case, we may not unnaturally expect to find some distinct
traces of a point of union between the adherents of the rival systems. Nor
shall we be disappointed in our expectation : these traces occur with remark
able clearness in the very extraordinary worship of Jagan-Nath; nor are they
wholly obliterated in the notices, which have come down to us, respecting
the western Cronus or Saturn and the Asiatic Baal or Molech.
I. The present observation might perhaps be further extended to Attis,
Adonis, Hu, and Mexitli : but the propriety of it will best appear from a
consideration of the avowed principles, on which the god Jagan-Nath is
venerated.
1 . In all parts of Hindostan, save Orissa, sectarian distinctions are care
fully observed, and the difference of castes is sedulously attended to : but
the temple of Jagan-Nath, the famous resort for pilgrims of every sect and
483
caste, is a converging point, where all the contending parties unite in harmony
with each other. Here, and here only, do all castes, tribes, sects, or
whatever terms may best include the whole race of Hindoos, eat and drink
together. Here the Brahmen for a season renounces his superiority to mix
with the Sudra : and here the Buddhist kneels by his side before the acknow
ledged common object of pagan adoration. The same mysterious great
father was alike venerated by every idolater in every quarter of the globe,
whatever differences might exist in modes and subordinate points. Here
the principle is confessed, and acted upon : here all join together in worship
ping him, who is equally the god of each system of old Babylonic idolatry.
(1.) Respecting the antiquity of Jagan-Naths pagoda, contrary opinions
have been entertained ; some carrying back its erection to the very beginning
of the Cali age, and others supposing it to have been built in the eleventh
century after the destruction of the temple of Sumn-Nath.1 I presume not
to determine the point, which in fact is of little moment to the present dis
cussion: but shall rather proceed to inquire into the character of this idol,
and into the nature of that bond of union by which pilgrims of all sects are
equally induced to venerate him.
(2.) The word Jagan-Nath itself is not a name, but a title: it simply
denotes the lord of the Universe. Hence it is obvious, that, as each sect
arian venerates the great father under that character, each will be equally
prepared to worship him under the name of Jagan-Nath. Mr. Moor informs
us, that Crishna or Vishnou is chiefly adored as Jagan-Nath : while Mr.
Maurice says, that Jagan-Nath is Siva or Iswara, and that he may clearly
be recognized as such by the vast bull which projects out of the eastern side
of his pagoda.1 In both these opinions we have, I believe, the truth, but
not the whole truth. Jagan-Nath is certainly Vishnou, who assumed the
shape of a fish at the time of the deluge, and who once lay concealed within
the navicular Moon. He is certainly likewise the maritime Iswara, who
was the navigator of the ship Argha when the waters of the ocean overspread
the face of the whole earth. Accordingly, in the neighbourhood of his
Maurice's [nd. Ant. vol.iii. p. 26, 27.
* Moor's Hind. Panth. p. 212, 213, 358. Ind. Ant. vol. iii. p. 27.
CHAP- V,-

book iv. temple, an old tradition prevails, that he swam to it from some more westerly
region ; by which I think it evident that Armenia and mount Ararat must
be intended.1 But, although such opinions be just, they will not account for
the worship of Jagan-Nath being the centre of theological unanimity. That
worship must involve some points agreed upon by all sects, as constituting
the acknowledged fundamentals of each jarring system : which will not be
the case, if Jagan-Nath be solely either Crishna or Siva.
2. On this curious topic Mr. Paterson has been so peculiarly happy, that
we have little more to do than to adopt his opinion.
(1.) Though the worship of Jagan-Nath is commonly spoken of as pre
vailing in Orissa, he is not venerated there exclusively : for two other deities
are adored in conjunction with him. Now, when the sacred images of these
three divinities are stripped of their ornaments, they prove to be a triad of
a very peculiar conformation.
In the centre is the goddess Subhadra, a form of Devi or Isi ; in other
words, the diluvian ship Argha: on her right side, is Bal-Rama : and, on her
left, is Jagan-Nath. Bal-Rama and Jagan-Nath have each precisely the
same shape, in order to shew the identity of these reputed brothers : they
differ only in the colour of their faces, which exhibit the respective tints of
Siva and Vishnou, namely white and black ; while the countenance of Sub
hadra displays the bright yellow of the lotos, the colour of the short skirts in
which the Hindoo divinities are usually clad. The body of each of the three
deities, if body it can be called, seems to be composed of two eggs, the one
surmounting the other. On the top of the egg, which constitutes the upper
division of Subhadra's body, is placed her head ; and she is entirely destitute
of arms. But the superior egg in the similar bodies of Bal-Rama and JaganNath supports the navicular lunar crescent ; and within each crescent appears
the head of the deity. The crescent itself exhibits the rude semblance of
arms, as the two-fold egg does that of a body : but a sort of standard,
attached to the frame on which the three divinities are seated, sufficiently
shews that the apparent arms are really a lunette ; for the standard displays
in a black ground the mystic crescent with a circular ball within it represent
ing the head of the deity.*
' Ind. Ant. vol. iii. p. 27.
1 Sec Plate I. Fig. 16.
THE OHIGIN OF PAGAN IPQLATRY.
435
Now it is a curious circumstance, and what tends to throw much light on

the present subject, that the Pranava or mystical hieroglyphic, which is used
to express the divine name, has manifestly been borrowed from the form of
the remarkable triad before us. The upper part of this hieroglyphic is a
crescent containing a ball : and beneath the crescent is the imperfect
appearance of two eggs laterally joined to a third.1 But, if this character,
as Mr. Paterson observes, be made into a cypher ; we shall have two crescents,
each containing a ball and each surmounting two imperfect eggs, laterally
connected with another egg placed between them,1 The cypher however,
thus produced, graphically exhibits the triad of Bal-Rama, Subhadra, and
Jagan-Nath.' Here then we have a key to that singular principle of union,
which the worship of Jagan-Nath holds out to sects otherwise mutually d.is>agreeing. The form of the triad now under consideration has produced the
hieroglyphic, by which the mystic triliteral monosyllable Om is expressed :
and here, consequently, all the jarring sects finally meet together as in a
centre, whether they be Buddhists, Jainists, Sajvas, or Visbnavas.*
(2.) Om or Aum is generally, and with much reason, supposed to be the
same as the On or Aim of the old Egyptians. But this word denotes at
once the Sun, and the Trimurti or triple deity adored in conjunction with
him ; that triad, into which the fourth more ancient or proper humano-solar
god was thought to have multiplied himself. Here therefore all the different
6ects are at length found to symbolize : for the worship of the triplicated
Om, and the veneration of the lunar boat, was the foundation of all the
mythology of Paganism, however it might be varied in detail. In the
hieroglyphical group of Bal-Rama, Subhadra, and Jagan-Nath, the devout
Brahmen beholds that triple god, whom he reveres under the joint name of
Om, united with the great universal mother : the no less devout Saiva con
templates Iswara and his consort the ship Argha : the Vishnava adores his
favourite god Vishnou, safely concealed within the protecting lunar crescent :
the Buddhist worships that ancient Buddha, the child of the Moon and the
sovereign prince hidden within the belly of the fish, whom he knows to be
really the same as Brahm multiplied into Brahma- Vishnou-Siva, and whom
See Plate I. Fig. 17.
1 See Plate I. Fig. 18.
* See Plate I. Fig. 19 compared with Fig. 16.
* See Asiat. Res. vol. viii. p. 6l, 62, 63.
486
book iv. he similarly decorates with the. sacred title Om :
and the Jainist or Mahima-
nian views, with equal enthusiasm, the Trimurti incarnate in the person of
5ain or Mahiman. The basis of old mythology was the astronomical worship
of the solar great father, and of the lunar great mother. The one was Noah,
viewed as a transmigratory reappearance of Adam, and multiplying himself
into three sons at the beginning of each world : the other was the Earth
considered as an enormous ship floating on the vast abyss, and the Ark consi
dered as a smaller Earth sailing over the surface of the deluge. Of these,
the former was astronomically typified by the Sun ; while the latter was
symbolized by the boatlike crescent of the Moon. Hence the solar divinity
was supposed to have mysteriously triplicated himself : hence the name
Om or On was invented, to express both his astronomical and his triple cha
racter : hence the head of the god was placed within the wonderful lunar
boat : and hence the ancient deity, whom all sects agree to venerate in the
pagoda of Jagan-Nath, was believed to have swum to his temple, necessarily
of course when the whole intervening continent was laid under water, from
some region to the north-west of Hindostan.
(3.) The strange form of the god was contrived with sufficient ingenuity
to express what his votaries intended. Like all the oriental representations
of the hero-divinities, which the purer taste, not the greater knowledge, of
the Greeks led them to reject, the image of Jagan-Nath is plainly an hiero
glyphic. Nor is it an hieroglyphic peculiar to India alone : there are other
parallel symbols, which may both throw light upon it, and borrow light
from it. In the mythology of almost every ancient nation, an egg was em
ployed to shadow out both the literal greater World and the arkite smaller
World : and the form of Jagan-Nath is not the only combination, which
exhibits the egg surmounted by the crescent. Such was the figure of the
god Lunus of Heliopolis ; such also was the figure of the Lunus of Carrhae ;
and such is the ornament, which graces the head of Cali or Parvati or
Argha, as she appears in the Courma Avatar.1 The combination in ques
tion is but a double symbol, for the egg and the crescent equally repre
sented the mundane Ark. But the form of Jagan-Nath displays, not only
See Plate I. Fig. 11, 21, 22.
THE ORIGIN OF PAGAN IDOLAT11T.
487
the egg surmounted by the crescent, but the crescent itself containing a head.
Neither is this combination peculiar to the Hindoo god of Orissa. A coin
of the Carrhenians, whose addiction to the worship of Lunus is so well
known, exhibits a crescent containing a head :* and more than one ancient
hieroglyphic of the Egyptians shews the same remarkable combination. It
seems to me to be explained by the superstitious practice, which Lucian has
described to us, and which 1 have already had occasion to notice as con
necting together the worship of Osiris and the Mysteries of Adonis. Every
year a vessel was formed of papyrus representing the head of the Egyptian
deity ; and, being solemnly committed to the waves, was thought to be wafted
to Byblos in seven days by a supernatural impulse. Judging, both from the
hieroglyphics which seem to describe this superstition, and from the crescent
like form of the ark within which Osiris was inclosed and which was sup
posed to have drifted on shore with him in Phenicia, I am inclined to believe,
that the papyrine vessel mentioned by Lucian did not represent a head
merely, but a head placed within a lunette.1 The head, from its circular
form, was apparently used to symbolize the Sun or perhaps the Star which
was so general a concomitant of the arkite deities. In the Indian character,
which expresses the word Om, and which seems to have been borrowed from
the form of Jagan-Nath, a mere point, resembling the stop called a period,
is placed between the horns of the crescent : but, in a coin representing the
lunar god of the Carrhenians, the crescent incloses a star. This second
coin of that people is singularly curious; for, by almost exactly corre
sponding with the form of Jagan-Nath, it may serve to explain the real
import of that remarkable hieroglyphic. It exhibits an egg surmounted by
a lunette, which comprehends a star between its horns.' Now the form of
Jagan-Nath, as we have seen above, is a double egg surmounted by a
lunette, between the horns of which is placed a head : and the temple of
that deity is the centre of union, where all the contending sects offer up their
devotions in mutual harmony. Hence I interpret his symbolical figure to
denote that astronomical hermaphrodite deity, which the genius of ancient
Paganism contrived by blending Adam with the Earth and Noah with the
**,
488
,T' Afk ; that is to say, in other words, by joining together in one compound
hieroglyphic the great universal father and the great universal mother.
Jagan-Nath is Siva and Argha, Vishnou-Narayan and the Lotos, Crishna
and the protecting Moon, Buddha and Ila, Osiris and Isis, Adonis and
Venus, Attis and Cybele, Janus and Jana, Hu and Ceridwen, Woden and
Frea. He is the hermaphrodite Iswara, the hermaphrodite Jupiter, the
hermaphrodite Osiris, the hermaphrodite Attis, the hermaphrodite Venus,
and the hermaphrodite Adonis. He is at once the solar god Om, the great
father multiplying himself into three sons, and the masculine divinity Lunus
or Soma. But, at the same time, he is also the mystic egg ; which floated
on the waters of the vast abyss, and which produced the Brahma and the
sacred triad of the Hindoos and the Dionusic Protogonus and the three pri
meval kings of the Orphic poet. For he is not only Lunus, or Iswara :
but he is also Luna, or Isi, or Sita, or Parvati, or Argha. In short, the
crescent surmounting the egg represents the mundane Ark astronomically
venerated with the Moon : while the head placed within it represents the
transmigrating Noah astronomically revered sometimes in conjunction with
the Sun and sometimes in conjunction with a Star.
(4.) I think Mr. Maurice right in supposing, that Jagan-Nath is the same
divinity as Sumnath or Suman<Nath. They are doubtless one deity, adored
under somewhat different appellations. Jagan-Nath, as I have already
observed, denotes the lord of the Universe : and Suman-Nath, in a similar
manner, is equivalent to the lord Suman. Now Suman, Saman, or Somon,
is a well-known title of Buddha : and accordingly the city, where the temple
of Sumnath formerly stood ere it was polluted and plundered by the
Mohammedan theists, was called from him Patten-Sunmath or BoudhanSuman-Nath ; while the idol, as was common with the representations of
Buddha, consisted of one enormous stone fifty cubits in length, forty seven
of which were buried in the ground.1 Whether the pagoda contained any
hieroglyphic resembling the figure of Jagan-Nath, we are not informed : but
such a mode of symbolizing is clearly no modem invention, because it occurs
in the theology both of Carrha? and of Egypt.
1 Maurice's Ind. Ant. vol. iii. p. 26, 27, 3642.
489
(5.) The present worship of Jagan-Nath is a disgraceful mixture of

cruelty and obscenity. It is in fact the very same as the adoration of the
great father and the great mother, viewed as the two principles of fecundity,
which has prevailed from the earliest times in every quarter of the globe.
The supposed character of the deity is marked, as of old, by the phallic
Orgies : and his favour is thought to be the most effectually procured by the
self-immolation of his votaries. Like the Egyptian Osiris, the god of Orissa
has his sacred bulls which familiarly mingle with the deluded pilgrims : like
the Assyrian Mylitta, the Cyprian Venus, and the Armenian Anais, he is
propitiated by female lewdness : and, like the war-god of Egypt and the
agricultural god of Phenicia, he is drawn on his high festival day in solemn
procession seated on a towering car.1
II. The Jagan-Nath of Orissa seems to me to be the identical deity,
whom the Greeks and Romans venerated under the appellations of Cronus
and Saturn : for this god is equally the great universal father ; this god
stands equally connected with each of the two primeval superstitions. As
the parent of Jupiter and Neptune and Pluto, who are certainly the same
as the Indian Trimurti Brahma-Vishnou-Siva, we may rightly identify him
with the ancient self-triplicating Brahme : as such therefore, he ought to
have been classed with the Bacchic divinities. Yet, if we attend more mi
nutely to his character, we shall find it almost impossible not to pronounce
him the same as Buddha, Thoth, or Saca : as such therefore, he ought
rather to have been placed in the Buddhic Pantheon.
Since his unity with
Brahme is sufficiently proved by his being the father of the three younger
Bacchic hero-gods, I am only concerned to establish his identity with
Buddha. This, accordingly, shall first be done : and, afterwards, the pecu
liarities of his human character may properly be exhibited.
1. As for his identity with Buddha, we learn from Plutarch, that some
mythologists maintained him to be the same as Herm-Anubis or Thoth.1
But Herm-Anubis or Thoth was certainly the same as Buddha or Datta.
Cronus therefore, agreeably to such an opinion, must likewise be the same
as that oriental deity.
1 See Buchanan's Christ. Res. in Asia. p. 129147.
Pag. Idol,
vol. ii.

3 Q
4,90
iv.
E ORIGIN OF PAGAN IDOlATHY
(1.) Nor was the opinion taken up at random : on the contrary, there is
much to confirm it. The Greek translator of Sanchoniatho tells us, that,
among the Phenicians, Cronus was denominated // : and he is clearly right
in giving us this piece of information ; for the legend of the Punic II is
such, as to leave us no room to doubt of his identity with the classical
Saturn. Each is the son of Heaven and Earth : each is the parent of a
triple offspring : each is said to have mutilated his father.1 The Cronus
then of the classical mythologists is the II of the Phenicians. But the
Phenicians were Indo-Scythae ; who migrated first from upper India to Ba
bylonia, and afterwards from Babylonia to Palestine.* Now the IndoScythae have in all ages been worshippers of Buddha or Menu : and they
still both denominate this hero-god Ila, and assign to him a daughterconsort who bears the same appellation. Hence it is manifest, that the Ila
(pronounced II) of the Indo-Scythae is the II of their brethren the Pheni
cians. But the legend of II proves him to be the classical Saturn. There
fore the classical Saturn must inevitably be identified with the Ila or Buddha
or Menu of the Indo-Scythae. Agreeably to this conclusion, we find him,
in the Phenician mythology, immediately connected with Taut or Thoth : for
he is said to have extended his sovereignty to the south over Egypt, and to
have given the sceptre of that country to Taut.' The legend itself, if his
torically considered, relates no doubt to the conquest of Egypt by the
Phenician or Cuthic Shepherd-kings : but these were professed worshippers
of Taut or Buddha; and, however Sanchoniatho in a manner very common
among the old mythologists may have divided his national god into the two
characters of II and Taut, they were in reality one and the same person,
whose rites were brought by the Scythian Shepherds from upper India to
Palestine and ultimately to Egypt.
(2.) Saturn being thus the same deity as Buddha, we find him bearing
not only the appellation //, but likewise another of the sacred Buddhic titles.
Chiun, whose star is mentioned by the prophet Amos, is rightly, by Selden
1 Sanchon. apud Euseb. Prsep. Evan, lib.i. c. 10.
* Sec below book vi. c. 5. V. 1, 2.
1 Sanchon. apud Euseb. Praep. Evan. lib. i. c. 10.
491
and Beyer, either identified with Saturn or at least immediately connected

with him.1 Now this star, as we have elsewhere seen, is manifestly the diluvian star of the Persic Mithras or the second man-bull Taschter : and the
Persic Mithras or Taschter or Aboudad has been shewn to be the same as
Mahabad or Buddha.* Accordingly, we are told by Aben-Ezra, that the
god, whom the classical writers denominate Cronus or Saturn, was styled
by the Arabs and the Persians Chivan ; which is palpably the same title as
the Chiun of Amos.'
Nor was Aben-Ezra mistaken in this assertion : for
both the centauric form of Chivan or Taschter, his connection with the
deluge, and his being placed at the head of three subordinate associates,
serve alike to identify him with that Saturn, whom Lycophron pronounces to
be eminently the Centaur.4 But Chiun or Chivan seems to be only the
Buddhic title Saca or Sacya, in a more simple shape : for, since the Chinese
distinguish their god Fo or Buddha by the name of Che-Kya or the great
Kya, writing the Indian appellation Sacya in two words instead of one;
it is probable, that Sacya is really a compound term denoting the illustrious
Cya or Chiun.
(3.) I am inclined indeed to think, that even the ordinary name of the
Latin deity will still bring us to a similar result. The younger oriental
Buddha is clearly the same person as the younger oriental Menu. But this
Menu, who flourished at the time of the deluge, is called Satyavrata, to
distinguish him from the elder Menu or Adima. Now, if the termination
Ata be separated from Satyavrata, the remaining word Satyaur or Satur
will point out to us not equivocally the origin of the Roman title Satur or
Saturn. The same appellation was no less known to the ancient Babylonians.
We learn from Berosus, that the person, who was saved in an Ark at the
epoch of the general flood, was called by them Xisuthr or Seisuthr. But
the name Se-Sutkr or Cai-Sutkr is no other than Satur or Satyaur united
with the eastern prefix Cat or Se, which signifies great or illustrious ; so
1 Amos v. 26. Scld. de diis Syr. synt. ii. c. 14. Beyer. Addit. in loc.
* See above book iii. c. 3. III. 7. (2.) and book iv. c. 5. XXIII,
* Seld. de diis Syr. synt. ii.c. 14.
* kycoph. Cassan, ver. 1203.
492
book iv. that Scisuthr is in fact equivalent to the illustrious Satur. Nor was the
title less familiar to the Gothic tribes, which finally subverted the Roman
empire and established themselves in the west of Europe. Their god Seater
was represented as a meagre old man, with long hair and a long beard,
standing on a fish, which was placed upon an upright column. In his left
hand he held, like the Indian divinities, awheel or ring: and in his right he
bore what Verstigan calls a pail of water, within which were flowers and
fruits.1 This last was certainly the Argha cup of the Hindoos; which, in
a similar manner, is constantly filled, during the performance of their sacred
rites, with water, fruit, and flowers.
Such coincidences throw much light on
the real character of Saturn. As Sat)'aur-Ata, Sei-Suther, Seater, and

Saturn, are all equally, so far as personality is concerned, the patriarch Noah :
it seems only reasonable to believe, that the four titles are all mere variations
of a single name. That name, however, being well known to the ancient
Babylonians, and yet at the same time being used in a precisely similar ap
plication by other tribes far removed from Chaldea both in an eastern and a
western direction : the presumption is, that it was first employed to desig
nate the great father by the Cuthim of Nimrod, and that it was afterwards
carried away from the plain of Shinar by them of the dispersion along with
the idolatry to which it was attached. One branch, accordingly, of the
Scythians conveyed it to their settlements in upper India ; where they fixed
the appulse of that ark, which preserved the person distinguished by the
title in question.
Another branch of them, under the name of Palli or
Pelasgi, similarly carried it to their western settlements in Italy ; where, iD
the same spirit of local appropriation, they made the wonderful voyage of
their divinity to terminate. And, at length, a third branch, emigrating from
their pristine seats at the head of the Indus and on the north of Persia,
bore the title and the god to whom it was applied into the forests of Ger
many ; carefully preserving every characteristic mark of the Asiatic origin of
them both. Agreeably to this hypothesis, the proper identity of the Roman
Saturn and the Gothic Seater ; which last must inevitably be the same as the
Indo-Scythic Satyaur-Ata, because the worship of him was brought by our
* Vcrstig. Rcstit. of decayed intcll. p. 6*.
493
forefathers into Europe from the Indian Caucasus : the proper identity of caAP. xu
Saturn and Seater, and thence of Saturn and Satyaur-Ata, is proved by one
of those arbitrary coincidences, which so often occur in the old mythology
of the Gentiles. The last day of the week was styled by the Latins the day
of Saturn : and we, in common with other European nations of Gothic
extraction, are still accustomed to denominate the very same day Saturday
or the day of Seater.
But Menu-Satyaurata, or the masculine Ila, is one
with Buddha : therefore the Roman Saturn, who by the Indo-Scythic Phenicians was called Ila, must also be Buddha.
(4.) With respect to the appellation itself, as it appears to have been
first used by the Babylonians previous to the confusion of tongues, it is most
natural to seek it in that Chaldee dialect which was spoken by the Babylo
nians.
Now, in the Chaldee, the verb Sater signifies to hide : hence the
name Satur will denote the hidden one.
Such a derivation is rendered the
more probable by its exact accordance with the mystic character of the god,
who bore the title. We may suppose the appellation of Satur to have been
bestowed upon the great father in allusion to what the epoptas called his
aphanism or disappearance from mortal eyes, while he lay concealed within
the Ark : and the present conjecture may be thought to derive some weight
from the etymology of Latium ; for it is said to have been so denominated
from Lateo, and the alleged reason is that Saturn once lay hid in that
country.1 But, whatever may be thought of the proposed derivation of Satur,
the fabled concealment of the god, whence Latium is said to have borrowed
its name, related, I have no doubt, like the aphanism of Osiris, to the inclosure of Noah within the Ark.
2. Having thus attempted to establish the position that Saturn is the same
person as the oriental Buddha or Menu, I proceed to consider his charac
ter, which will evidently identify him with Noah viewed as a reappearance
of Adam.
(1.) That part of it, which respects his unity with the protoplast and his
manifestation in the antediluvian golden age, has already been sufficiently
discussed.*
Avoiding therefore a needless repetition of my former argu-
' Virg. iEneid. lib. viii. ver. 322, 323.
* See above book iii. c. i. i IV.
494
uook iv.
ments, I may now rather view him as the second great father of mankind,
with whom a new world commenced after the first had been destroyed by the
waters of the flood.
(2.) In this latter part of his character, it is impossible not to see, that
almost every circumstance minutely corresponds with the history of Noah.
Saturn is said to have been the parent, by his wife Rhea or Opis, of three
sons and three daughters. A dreadful calamity once impending over the
heads of this family of eight persons, its chief constructed a wonderful insu
lar cave or grotto in the midst of the ocean. Here he concealed his children
in perfect safety ; until the danger, which threatened them, was over.'
After the Saturnian family had emerged from their gloomy confinement within
the sea-girt cavern, the aged god was intoxicated by the youngest of his sons ;
and, during his stupefaction, lay in a state of exposed nudity.
Jupiter, by
the Egyptians named Hctmmon, approached, and barbarously mutilated, his

unresisting father while in this indecorous situation. Hence the poets fabled,
that Saturn enacted a law, by which it was forbidden to behold the gods
naked.1 In consequence of this event, the god, being now no longer able to
maintain his pristine authority, was compelled to abdicate the sceptre of the
World and to divide his ample dominions among his three sons.
Among
these however Hammonor Jupiter obtained a decided preeminence; becoming

in fact himself an universal sovereign in the persons of his enterprizing descend
ants. With respect to the origin of Saturn, he is commonly said to have been the
son of Heaven and Earth : and a notion prevailed, both among the classical
writers and among the Phenicians, that his father had previously experienced
from him the same inhuman treatment which he himself afterwards ex
perienced from Hammon.' For this opinion, though utterly false, it is not
very difficult to account. As the theory of similar successive worlds taught,
that every event, which occurred at the beginning of one world, would
equally occur at the beginning of every world ; the insult, which Noah suf*
fered from his own offspring as the Gentiles told the story, he was himself
1 Porph. de antr. nymph, p. 254.
*Orph.apud Porph. de antr. nymph, p. 260.
' Apollpd. Bibl. lib. i. c. 1. 3. Euseb. Prjep, Evan, lib. i. c. 10.

feigned to have already offered to his own parent.
495
Saturn however is not CHA,>' vt:
always reputed to be the son of Heaven and Earth : Plato tells us, that he
and Rhea and their kindred deities were the children of Oceanus and The
tis or of the Sea and the A~k ; thus intimating, as Bochart well observes,
that Noah and his family were born allegorically from the deluge.1 Accord
ingly, while Saturn is sometimes mystically said to have, hidden his children
. in a sea-girt cave ; he is, at other times, literally represented as sailing over
the ocean in a ship. The old Italians indeed pretended, that his voyage termi
nated on the shores of Latium, and that he was there received by Janus :
but Ovid, as the faithful depository of ancient tradition, carefully instructs
us, that his vessel did not reach the Tuscan river, until the god had first
wandered in it over the whole globe.1
In memory of this voyage, his token
was a ship ; which appeared on the reverse of the coins stamped with the
double face of Janus.'
The inclosure of the great father within the Ark, symbolized by an insu
lar cavern in the midst of the ocean, was viewed as a state of confinement :
and he himself, particularly throughout the east, was thought daring the
time of his incarceration to be wrapped in a profound deathlike slumber.
Both these ideas occur in the fabulous history of Saturn, though in two dif
ferent mythologies.
We are told by Macrobius, that, according to the Latin ritual, the image
of the god continued bound with chains in his temple during the whole of
every year, except one particular day which introduced the festival of the
Saturnalia : but that on this day, which occurred in December and which
was eminently dedicated to him, he was solemnly set at liberty by the re
moval of his fetters.* Having lost all memory of the origin of this custom,
the later Romans attempted to account for it by resorting to physics : but
its real import was, that the deity of the Ark was confined within his vessel
during a year, and was let loose at the end of it.
When Saturn was set at
liberty, the people gave themselves up to mirth, jesting, and ebriety ; ex1
1
3
4
Plat. Tim. Boch. Phaleg. lib. i. c. 1. p. 4.

Ovid. Fast. lib. i. ver. 233, 234.
Ovid. Fast. lib. i. ver. 229, 230. Macrob. Saturn, lib. i. c. 7.
Macrob. Saturn, lib. i. c. 8.
496
book it.
u]ting much in the same manner, as the Egyptians did when the lost Osiris
was found again, or as the Persians and Babylonians did during the con
tinuance of an exactly similar festival which they denominated Sacea from
their god Saca or Se-Sach or Buddha-Sacya.1
1 Stat. Sylv. lib. i. in Cal. Decemb. Saturn. The annual festival Sacea lasted five days,
the days themselves being called the Sadan days : and they were evidently the five Epagomenie or supernumerary days of the year. During this eastern festival, both men and women
gave themselves up to the most unrestrained drunkeness and lasciviousness : masters changed
place with their servants, who were then allowed to act the part of their superiors, while
their superiors sustained their part : and one of these temporary lords, who was distinguished
for the occasion by the title Zoganes, played the part of king and was decorated with the
robes of royalty. The festival was celebrated wherever there was a temple of Anais; who
was the Magna Mater of the Persians, and who was honoured, like the Babylonian Mylitta
and the Cyprian Venus, by the solemn prostitution of female chastity. Seld. de diis Syr.
synt. ii. c. 13.
It has been inquired, why this festival was called Sacea : and some have imagined, that
it was instituted by Cyrus in commemoration of a victory which he obtained over the Scy
thian Sacs, and that the Babylonians borrowed it from the Persians when they became sub
ject to their empire. But there is nothing in it, which bears the least resemblance to the
commemoration of a victory : and there is much reason for believing, that it prevailed among
the Babylonians prior to their subjugation by the Medo-Pcrsians. Berosus, in a fragment
preserved by Atheneus, mentions the festival by its name Sacia as a Babylonian institution,
without giving the least hint that it was first introduced by Cyrus : and Ctesias, in his work
on the Persians, speaks of it in one of those books of his history which treat of the times that
long preceded the empire of Cyrus. Hence Selden with much reason concludes, that it was
neither instituted by that conqueror, nor had any thing to <lo with his alleged victory over
the Sacs. Hesychius calls it a Scythian festival : and I believe him to be right in his opi
nion ; though I am persuaded, that it was styled Sacia, not so much from the Sacx, as from
the god of the Saca?, that is Saca or Woden. The ancient Persian mountaineers were un
doubtedly a branch of the Scuths or Goths: and the Cuthic empire of Nimrod, the builder
of Babel, was founded by the same intrepid and adventurous race ; whence we find it ex
pressly called a Scythian empire. Saca or Buddha therefore was equally worshipped by the
Chusas of the Indian Caucasus, the old Iranians, the Scuths or Chusdim of Babylonia, and
the Gothic and Saxon conquerors of Europe. Accordingly, Ilesychius tells us, that among
the Babylonians Seches was the appellation of the planet Mercury or Buddha : and the pro
phet Jeremiah speaks of Sesach as a well known principal idol of Babylon ; denominating him
Melech Sesach or King Sesach, agreeably to the custom prevalent among the idolaters of
bestowing upon their gods the appellation of King or Lord. Compare 2 Kings xviii. 33, 34,
497
For the sleep of Saturn we must have recourse to the theology of the old
Celts. Plutarch, after telling us that the various islets which are scattered
near the main land of North-Britain received their appellations from the
names of the hero-gods to whom they were dedicated, goes on to mention,
that in one of those islets Saturn lay in a state of deep sleep, fast hound and
guarded by Briareus and attended by many ministering demons.1 The
god, whom Plutarch here denominates Cronus, is doubtless Hu or Buddwas :
yet the identity of these deities is sufficiently obvious. The insular cavern,
where the image of Saturn was thus exhibited, was a local transcript of the
fabled grotto, within which he was thought to have concealed his family : his
gigantic guard Briareus, who placed upon him the mystic fetters, was the
British Typhon or Ahriman or Hayagriva : and his slumber was the same
allegorical deathlike sleep, as that of Brahma and Vishnou on the surface of
the intermediate deluge, as that of Buddha or Siaka from one great mun
dane revolution to another, and as that of Osiris while floating in his luniform ark on the waters of the oceanic Nile.
Living as Noah did at the period of the destruction and renovation of the
55. Jcrem. li. 41. xxv. 2o\ 2 Chron. xxxii. 13, 14. Isaiah xxxvi. 18 20. xxxyii. 12, 13.
Stcbes and Scsach are clearly the same deity : and they arc both as clearly that Saca, in
whose honour the festival Sacea was instituted ; for Seches is the Buddhic compound SachEsa, wlrile Sesach is Sc-Sach or Cai-Sach which denotes the illustrious Saca. Zoganes or
Sacan-Esa seems to be only another variation of the same title, pronounced with a broader
vowel sound like the western Soc or Socus, which was equally a name of Mercury. The slave,
who bore that appellation with the assumed character of a king, played the part of the regal
great father: and, in the celebration of the Sacea, which is plainly the same festival as the
Latin Saturnalia, the primitive times immediately succeeding the creation and the deluge
were designed to be represented ; when as yet the distinction between masters and slaves was
unknown, and when the only rule acknowledged was that of the transmigrating patriarch the
true sovereign of the world.
From this old Persico-Gothic festival our Christianized forefathers of the middle ages,
whose ancestors emigrated out of the notth of Iran and Ilindostan, borrowed their ecclesias
tical mummery of the Abbot of misrule and other strange profanations of a similar descrip
tion. The same origin may be ascribed to our Christmas gambols and to the twelfth-day
king and queen ; unless we choose rather to deduce them from a Roman source. Age, librrtate Decembris, quando ita majore* voluerunt, utere.
' Plut. de defect, orac.
Pag. Idol.
vol. ii.
3 R
cnA*' vu

world, and marked as his life eminently was with the commencement of a
new chronological epoch, we shall find these circumstances strongly alluded
to in the history of Saturn. The Orphic poet celebrates him, as the father
both of gods and men, as destroying and reproducing all things, as an uni
versal patriarch whose sway extended over the whole world, and as the
parent of a new age or era.1 Macrobius speaks of him, as the first of
gods, and as the author of time : which he explains by teaching us, that,
while the world was Chaos, there was no time ; but that, when Saturn
came, time commenced.* Much the same idea prevailed among the ancient
Hindoos ; for, as the Greek name of the god is declared to be only a va
riation of a word which signifies Time ; so the Brahmens bestow the ex
actly similar appellation of Cola or Time on the great father.' Hence Sir
William Jones concludes, that the general deluge was the period where real
Indian chronology begins ; and remarks, that the idea of Time is intimately
blended in the characters of Saturn and Noah.4 His observation is just to
a certain extent : yet we must not forget, that, on the avowed principles of
heathen theology, Saturn is not exclusively Noah, but that imaginary trans
migrating personage who was thought to appear with his three sons or ema
nations at the commencement of every world.
With no less exactness does the postdiluvian character of Noah answer to
that of Saturn; which is little more than a repetition of the, character
ascribed to Bacchus, Osiris, Phoroneus, Inachus, and various other gen
tile transcripts of the great father.
Like these kindred hero-gods, he brought
mankind to a civilized mode of life; and travelled over the whole world,
inculcating maxims of justice and simplicity. He presided over agriculture
sand the fruits of the earth : whence he was called by the Romans Stercutus
or the god of dung. As such, he was the Zeus-Arotrius. of the Greeks,
and the Baal-Zebul of the Phenicians and Canaanites : for the title Baal* Orpb. Hymn. xii.
1 Macrob. Saturn, lib. i. c. 7- p. 150. c. 8. p. 156", 157. c. 22. p. 214.
3 Idem Kfovoj ct XfofO*. Macrob. Saturn, lib. i. c. 8. Saturnus a Grxcis, immutata titcra, K(<>os quasi Xfoxoj vocatur. Ibid. c. 22. 'O xftros h nteurtv sonr. Phurn. dc rut.
Jcor. c. 6. Kfovty p.iv toy Xfovov. Schol. in Hesiod.
* Asjat. Res. vol. i. p. 234, 240.
499
Zebul is exactly equivalent to the Latin Stercuius, and most probably was
the appellation which Sanchoniatho's translator has not ill rendered Agrotcs
and Agruerus? He taught men the method of grafting and training fruittrees. He was the first planter of the vine, and the first person who ex
pressed and fermented the juice of the grape. As an agriculturist,, he was
usually represented with a scythe or sickle in his hand : and, in allusion
to his having mystically devoured his children and afterwards having dis
gorged them, he frequently appeared grasping a naked infant. He was es
teemed the first and oldest of the gods ; whence he was painted bearing every
mark of advanced age : yet a notion prevailed, that he once experienced a
wonderful renewal, and that from an old man he became a boy. This
doubtless alludes to the figurative birth of Noah from the Ark ; which led
the ancient mythologists to represent the diluvian god, as an infant floating
on the lotos. As the chief of the divine ogdoad, he was sometimes said to
be the parent of three sons and three daughters by his consort Rhea : and,
at other times, he was supposed to be the father of the seven Titans or Cabiri and of their sisters the seven Titanides or Cabine. Hence the number
eight was esteemed sacred to Rhea : and, since the world began again after
the flood, a new creation of the Universe was dated from the time when
she and her husband were thought to have flourished. Lastly, in the Phenician mythology, Saturn is reported to have been contemporary with
Dagon and Pontus and Typhon and Nereus, and to have given the city
Berytus to Neptune and the Cabiri who there consecrated the relics of the
ocean. The import of such a legend can scarcely be misunderstood. It
teaches us, that the epoch of the deluge was the true epoch of Saturn : and,
removing the transactions on mount Ararat to the Phenician Berytus or
Berilh which derived its name from the Barit or diluvian ship of the cove
nant, it represents Noah at the head of his family offering up a solemn sa
crifice to God of what had been preserved in the Ark from the fury of the
waves.*
1 I doubt, whether Baal-Zebul be a mere contemptuous Rabbinical variation of BaalZtbfib, as many hare supposed. I rather take them to be different titles.
1 Diod. Bibl, lib. v. p. 334. Macrob. Saturn, lib. i. c. 7, 8. Virp. /Erieid. lib. viii. \er. 321,
500
THE ORIGIN OF PAGAN 1UOLATUY.
III. The names, by which Saturn is ordinarily mentioned in Holy Scrip

ture, are Baal and Molcvh : but these are mere titles, which his votaries
applied to him by way of expressing his supererninent dignity ; the one sim
ply denoting Lord, and the other King.
1. His worship was of a peculiarly bloody and inhuman description, agree
ably to his fabled character of the destroying power : and the appellation
bestowed upon the Punic god, who was venerated with such worship,
abundantly proves that the classical Saturn was the same divinity as the
Baal or Molech of the inspired writers.
We are told by Minucius Felix, that in some parts of Africa infants were
sacrificed by their parents to Saturn, and that their cries were prevented by
caresses lest they should appear to be unwilling victims.1 Now this was
the precise mode of propitiating Molech : and the Africans, who thus wor
shipped Saturn, were undoubtedly the Carthaginians, who brought with them
the bloody rites of the oriental deity from their native Phenicia. Accord
ingly we learn from Porphyry, that the Phenicians were wont in times of
great calamity to sacrifice a man to Saturn : and, since he refers to Sanchoniatho as his authority ; it is clear, that this Saturn is the same person as II
or Buddha, who was distinguished by the additional honorary titles of
Mokch and Baal.1 He also tells us, that the Carthaginians sacrificed men
to Saturn; and that, when the practice was at length discontinued, they
sprinkled his altar with human blood in commemoration of its having once
prevailed.' Pescennius Festus in Lactantius gives the same account : and
he adds, that, when the Carthaginians had suffered a defeat from Agathocles,
they at once sacrificed to Saturn two hundred children of the nobility.4 To
these testimonies we might subjoin, were it necessary, those of Diodorus
Siculus, Tertullian, Eusebius, Athanasius, and many others ; who all con-
322. lib. vii. ver. 179. Fulgent. Mythol. lib. i. c. 2. Plut. Qustst. Rom. 42. Albric. de deor.
imag. c. 1. Martian. Capell. lib. i. c. 2. Euseb. Prap. Evan. lib. i. c. 10. Apollod. Bibl.
lib. i.e. 1. Damas. apud annot. inPhum.de nat. deor. c. 6. Plut. Parall. Vide Boch.
Phalcg. lib. i. c. 1.
,
1 Win. Fel. Octav. p. 291, 293.
1 Porphyr. de Abstinen. lib. ii. $ 56.
* Porph. de Abstin. lib. ii. i 27.
4 Lactan. Instit. lib. i. c. 21. p. 1 15.
THZ ORIGIN OF PAGAN IDOLATRY-.
501
cur in the assertion, that human victims, and especially infants, were de
voted to Saturn by the Phoenicians and Carthaginians.
Thus it appears, that the principal god of the Tyriansand the Canaanites,
who was eminently propitiated by the sacrifice of children, is declared
unanimously by the writers of Greece and Rome to have been no other than
the classical Saturn. But such was the mode, in which Baal or Molech
was venerated throughout Palestine : and we have sufficient reasons for be
lieving, that the Carthaginians, following the custom of their Phenician an
cestors, distinguished the god, whom we have seen pronounced to be Saturn,
by those identical appellations. Athenagoras says, that the deity, whom
they worshipped, was called in their own language Amilcas ; which is evi
dently the compound title Am-Melech or the burning Molech, sometimes
written inversely Milcom or Mekch-Am : and, agreeably to the oriental
practice of assuming the names of the gods, we find both the word Molech
and the word Baal entering into the composition of many Carthaginian ap
pellatives, such as Hamilcar, Imilces, Milic, Hannibal, Asdrubal, and
Ithobal.' Hence it is evident, that the god, who in Scripture is denomi
nated Baal and Molech, and whose proper name among the Indo-Scythic
Phenickns was II or Ha, was the same deity as the Saturn of classical
mythology.
Accordingly we find the triplicated Saturn venerated with sacrifices, which
precisely resemble those of the Baal-Shalisha or triplicated Baal of Pales
tine.1 Athanasius informs us, that the Cretans propitiated Saturn by the
dev oting of infants.' Porphyry says, that the custom of sacrificing a man to
Saturn prevailed among the Rhodians, but that they latterly chose the vic
tim from among the malefactors who were condemned to death.4 And Lactantius teaches us, that the ancient Latins devoted men to Saturn, not by
slaughtering them at the altar, but by precipitating them from the Milvian
bridge into the Tiber. He adds, that, when this practice was discontinued,
they substituted in the place of it a custom of throwing into the river
figures of men made of straw or bulrush.5 In this last mode of sacrifice,
* Athcnag. Logat. c. xii. p. 52.
3 Athan. Orat. adv. gent.
5 Lactau. Instit. lib. i. c. 21.
1 2 Kings iv. 42.

* Porph. de Abstin. lib. ii. $ 51.
502
itbok iv. the victim, I conceive, represented the arkite god ; and lie was committed to
the .waves in commemoration of Noah's entering into the deluge, which was
constantly symbolized by the sacred river of the country. The rite was
closely analogical to that of committing to a holy lake or stream the Isis of
the Goths, the Durga of the Hindoos, and the virgin who shadowed out
the Isis of the Egyptians. When the person, thus cast into the water, was
a female ; the design of the ordinance was to commemorate the launching
of the Ark into the great abyss of the deluge.
2. The Jagan-Nath of Orissa, as we have seen, is worshipped in con
junction with the god Bal-Rama and the goddess Subhadra : of a precisely
similar nature was the adoration of Molech or Milcom. When Solomon
turned aside to the abominations of the Gentiles, he venerated Astoreth,
Chemosh, and Milcom, on the three peaks of the mount of corruption or the
mount of olives ; which he adopted as the local tricoryphean Mcru or Ida
of his apostasy, as it had heretofore sustained the same mythological cha
racter in the days of the idolatrous Canaanites and Perizzites.1 This triad
was no other than that of Orissa : and a remarkable peculiarity, attached
to the mountain where it was worshipped, proves decidedly, that one of its
members was Jagan-Nath viewed as a manifestation of Buddha. In various
parts of the east is shewn a gigantic impression of the foot of that deity :
and it is devoutly believed, that, in every region of the globe to which he
wandered, he left one of these divine prints for the consolation of his vo
taries. Now it is a curious circumstance, that the impression of a foot in
the solid rock is still exhibited on the summit of the mount of olives : but,
in consequence of our Lord having ascended to heaven from the top of that
hi}l, the fabulizing monks of the holy sepulchre have childishly appro
priated a genuine pagan legend, and thence point out the mark to the won
dering pilgrim as the last sacred footstep of the Messiah.1
3. On the real character of Baal or Molech much light is thrown by a
very remarkable passage in Holy Writ, which, so far as I can judge, has
hitherto been but imperfectly understood.
1 2 Kings xxiii. 13. See Clarke's Trav. vol. ii. p. 578.
1 Stuidys's Trav. p. ICC. Maundrell's Trav. p. 104. Adrichom. Thcat. tcrr. sanct. j>. 170-
THE ORIGIN OF PAGAN IjDOLATRY.
503
In the contest between Elijah and the priests of that deity, the prophet
is described as addressing them in a strain of what has usually been con
sidered as nothing more than severe irony,
Cry aloud ; for he is a god : either he is talking, or he is pursuing, or
he is in ajourney ; or peradventure he sleepeth, and must be awaked.1
Now this is doubtless irony: but the force of it is greatly impaired by es
teeming it mere irony ; and the sense of the passage is likewise much ob
scured by a somewhat faulty translation. Elijah is not simply ridiculing the
worship of the idolatrous priests ; he is not taunting them, as it were, at
random : but he is ridiculing their senseless adoration, upon their own ac
knowledged principles ; he is describing, with singular accuracy, the my
thological attributes of the great transmigrating father ; and, with redoubled
energy, he is thus urging upon them the extreme absurdity of venerating
such a being in the place of the all-wise and all-powerful Jehovah.
Cry with a loud voice, for he must certainly be a god : he is either
wrapped in profound meditation ; or he is occupied in wandering ; or he is
engaged in travelling ; or perhaps he sleepeth, and must be awaked.
Every one of these particulars, so far from being casually mentioned,
enters prominently into the character of the great father of gentile theology,
-and was devoutly received by his votaries as a mysterious point of belief.
During the intermediate period between each two similar worlds, he was
supposed, and throughout the east is still supposed, to float on the surface
of the deluge; either inclosed in a wonderful egg and engaged in deep medi
tation on his own perfections, or reclining on some aquatic vehicle and
wrapped in a profound and deathlike sleep. In this state he continues,
while the waters prevail: but, when they retire, he awakesfrom his slumber
to the energy of renov ated exertion, and is manifested as the official creator
of a new world. Such however is not the only part of his character, speci
fied with poignant ridicule by the prophet of the true God. He alludes also
to those frantic wanderings, for which Siva is no less celebrated in the east
than Bacchus and Attis were in the west : and he distinctly notices those
travels of conquest and civilization, which the great father, by whatever
1 Kings xviii. 27.
504-
THE ORIGIN OF PAGAN IDOLATER.
book iv. name he might be distinguished, whether by that of Osiris and Dionusus or
of Saturn and Buddha and Deo-Naush, was universally supposed to have
achieved.All these particulars are touched upon by Elijah in his sarcastic address
to the priests of Baal. Hence we must infer, to give the satire its full
poignancy, that the character of that god was the received character of the
great father.
IND OF vOL. II.
ERRATA.
volume n.
Tagt
iviii.
4.
6.
11.
42.
46.
48.
59.
78.
89.
92.
125.
126.
142.
. 164.
258.
269.
359.
360.
364.
391.
404.
408.
413.
427.
Lint
2. For 388 read 391
3 from bottom. For incilned read inclined
1 note. For sect. xiii. read { XIII.
last line. For politics read polities
1 note. For Stanly's read Sta>dey's
1 note. Add 3 before Suid
17. For Ilu read Hu
12. For Maz ndran read Mazendran
1 3. For prince of read prince in
7. For OsAen read Oschen
18. For Helias read //<?/'*
9. For Amreeta read Amrita
18. For Amreeta read Amrita
1 note. Add 3 before Herrer
4. For are read is
3 note. Insert i. after lib.
3 from bottom. For Di-Youi read Di-Yoni
15. For 3 read 2
20. For 4 read S
15. For 5 read 2
24. For man read Man
S. Add 2 before Tfte classical
26. For Chryson read Chrysor
IS. For ^ read Jind
14. For Tdhus read TAui
4 note. For Hieroz. read Hierog.
17. For read Ce
' .1 .
.
, >1 '*

The Origin of Pagan Idolatry

Încărcat de

Informații document

Titlu original

Drepturi de autor

Formate disponibile

Partajați acest document

Partajați sau inserați document

Opțiuni de partajare

Vi se pare util acest document?

Este necorespunzător acest conținut?

Drepturi de autor:

Formate disponibile

The Origin of Pagan Idolatry

Încărcat de

Drepturi de autor:

Formate disponibile

This is a reproduction of a library book that was digitized

by Google as part of an ongoing effort to preserve the

To tht.Mght Jfev? THOMAS BURGESS D.D. LORD BISHOP of STDAVIDS,

Every reasonable Hypothesis should be supported on a fact.

Respecting the fable of the four ages

7. The legend of Annacus or Nannacua

I. Sketch of the antediluvian and diluvian history contained in the Zend-Avesta

1 . On that to the Moon

THe pagan accounts of partial deluges have in a great measure originated

I. The ancient mythologists unanimously assert, that each of their gods is

18. Brahma, Vishnou, Siva

I. The Sun was viewed as a mariner, placed either in a ship or in the ac

Respecting the division of the gentile mythologists into two great

Respecting the human character of the great father, as exhibited

2. Guealogy of Adonis III. Attis, Atys, Menes

(1.) Cretan Jupiter

2. His ship, his dove, and his mystic door

2. Identity of Mercury and Buddha proved from the identity of their

(3.) fie was the same as Osymandyas or Ismandes or Sesostris

As the same object was venerated in both superstitions, we find them at

(5.) The present worship of Jagan-Nath, according to the general prac

EXPLANATION OF THE FIGURES IN PLATE II.

Respecting the Fable of the Four Ages.

But this notion is not always exhibited precisely in the same

THE ORIGIN OF PAGAN IDOLATRY.

sive manifestation of the great father was esteemed only a reappearance of

This was indeed but a faint and imper

THE ORIGIN OF PAGAN IDOLATRY.

found, that this, to a certain extent, was actually the case.

THE ORIGIN OF PAGAN IDOLATRT.

THE ORIGIN OF PAGAN IDOLATKT,

THE ORICIN OF PAGAN IDOLATRY.

THE OltlGIN OF PAGAN IDOLATRY.

caused him to be deemed a new manifestation of the great father; who is

THE ORIGIN OF PAGAN IDOLATRY.

THE ORIGIN OF PAGAN IDOLATRY.

The universal globe shall enjoy

According to the Hindoos,

every mundane system terminates with a deluge, on the surface of which

Hence Virgil, true to

the doctrine of a succession of similar worlds, in each of which every event

THE ORIGIN OF PAGAN IDOLATRY.

They had abundance of fruits and trees : and

They spent their time in

He mentions, that he had learned these particulars from

that Plato's notions of a primitive state of happy innocence, whether we may

THE ORIGIN OF PAGAN IDOLATRY".

tion of the soul, by which it was reduced to a state of spiritual bondage,

Now we are well assured, thvt

this depravation took place at the end of the Paradisiacal age.

therefore of Paradise mu3t inevitably be the fabled age of gold.

Old age was

Peace reigned : and her companions were happiness and

Originally, says he, the tribes of

' Plat. Polit. p. 251.

THE ORIGIN OF PAGAN IDOLATRY.

The very meanestof their utensils were compos

* Cluver. Germ. Ant. p. 225.

THE ORIGIN OF PAGAN IDOLATRY'.

precisely the same circumstance. The transgression of Eve is the obvious

There was then no extortion,

no circumvention, nofraud, used in their dealings with one another. Perpe

1 Hi*t. of Hind. vol. i. p. 371.